Make it $50 an hour if they really believe in their own crap. See what that does to the economy.
They cannot determine where “$15” came from; it is a purely arbitrary number divorced from economic reality, so why not $50?
“They cannot determine where “$15” came from; it is a purely arbitrary number divorced from economic reality, so why not $50?”
It is probably some calculation for minimum needed for housing, food, and transportation. The problem is for those of us higher is that prices go up but our pay is basically stagnant, making it tougher and tougher. And they wonder why consumers aren’t spending.
“They cannot determine where “$15” came from; it is a purely arbitrary number divorced from economic reality, so why not $50?”
That is how FDR decided the price of gold would by $35 per ounce. He pulled a number out of the air and went with 35 because 35 is divisible by 7, and 7 is a lucky number. That is Democrat economics.
The $15 figure was simply pulled out of their rectal orifices. It has no basis in economics or even politics, as an excessive demand is sure to cause a lightning strike out of an otherwise clear sky.
And these lightning strikes end up in establishing “right to work” laws, that outlaw union shops, a result that few labor leaders want to impose upon themselves, even though the “minimum wage” is heavily lobbied by these same labor bosses. This is merely to give unions leverage in their next wage contract negotiations.
So the union negotiators try to get legislators to make the increase incrementally over a period of several years, when, it is presumed, inflation shall have eroded the value of the original “minimum wage” that had been established.
Minimum wage should be $0.00 per hour, and designated as something else, maybe a “training wage” or an “internship stipend”, because a new employee has to start at some level, yet brings very little to productivity until gaining the necessary skills to become an asset and not a liability to the employer.
Maybe we can make it married to economic reality by referring to it annually instead of hourly. I think a lot more people would get the disaster it is if they saw it as a $30,000 annual minimum salary instead of a $15 hourly minimum wage.
My daddy, a person I considered to be a very wise man, always told me that I was only worth what someone would pay me. Am sure he is turning over in his grave at what is going on in the work world today.
Given that the vast majority of those in Congress, as well as politicians in all other areas, have never had to meet a payroll they are the last people in the world who should have a say about what people should be paid.