Hurting Pennsylvania’s Poor
Written by William Mulgrew on June 27th, 2006My friends, next time the topic of minimum wage filters into your conversation with liberals, stick it to them– higher minimum wage laws damage the poor. Pennsylvania is a case in point.
The Pennsylvania Senate voted last week to phase-in a higher minimum wage of $6.65 in 2007 and $7.15 in 2008.
This sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? The liberals who voted for it now get to parade around the voters and tell them how much they care about the poor while those evil conservatives care more about businesses.
They have a slight problem: who exactly earns minimum wage in PA?
The Commonwealth Foundation and Employment Policies Institute comissioned a study to find out:
- 65% work part-time
- 56% are less than 24 years of age
- 45.9% live with their parents
- 10% were single parents or a single earner in a married couple with children
So most of these people are young or working part-time.
Voting for higher minimum wage laws is like sending companies an invitation to leave the state or cut back on jobs (or both).
The study also shows that these higher rates would cost the PA economy $350 million per year and at least 10,000 jobs– half of the loss would hit those less than 25 years old. So we’re putting the kids out of work, folks.
Next time liberals flout the minimum wage issue at you, put them in their place– higher minimum wage laws are among the worst we could do for the poor. Don’t let them succeed in misleading the public.
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Funny how it’s always the people making above minimum wage who says it will hurt the poor. It’s never the poor themselves.
If you think it will cut PA jobs, think again. Walk by places that have minimum wage jobs (e.g. fast-food, dry cleaners) and you’ll see that many of them have PERMANENT help-wanted signs up. They’re always looking for help. The problem is that many people won’t work there because of the wages. Raise the wages and these places will find more and better employees. They’ll fight against an increase, but they’ll love it when they can get people to work and make more money because of their increased capacity.
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I don’t even know where to begin. So a person’s financial success bars him from making an educated statement about basic, simple economics? Sure….
Walking by a Kroger and seeing a help-wanted sign up all the time isn’t a sign of labor shortage. It’s a sign of a place that relies on cheap labor (i.e. teenagers) that comes and goes quickly. I know, I used to work minimum wage at Kroger. Even when people left, things seemed to go smoothly even though there was a “help needed” sign on the door. There is a huge difference between a cheap labor employer looking for help and a higher skilled-seeking corporation looking for help.
Forcing a grocer to pay an employee more than $5.15 an hour to bag groceries is a crock. I’ll put it the other way around, too: forcing a teenager who is looking for a few extra bucks out of a job by placing an artificial minimum wage above the equilibrium wage for a low-level job is also a crock.
The very concept of a minimum wage is not consistent with free-market principles, but we are already stuck with one that the economy is used to so I say keep it where it is. Don’t raise it, just keep it right where it is. Plenty of young workers are willing to work for $5.15 an hour.
It is true that a family of four can’t live off a minimum wage job. That’s the jobs aren’t meant for a supporter of a family of four. If you are supporting a family of four, and you are stuck in a minimum wage paying job, you have many more problems to be worrying about. (Like maybe graduating from high school)
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Liberals dont understand how business works. Imagine that! It explains why so many successful businessmen vote for the economically conservative. Understand this: Small businesses with limited cash flow and even large business like Walmart will not cut into their profit to pay this increase. Nope, they will slash jobs and expect more work from less people because believe it or not, money doesnt just appear for this state mandated endeavors. I’d rather have 50 people employed (off welfare and state aid) at $5, than 25 at $10. (I think those 25 might agree) Simple economics, simple math, simple human response.
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I would imagine some liberals do know how business works. But, this site deals with how we can Save The GOP. Sometimes, we have to look at things and say, maybe we’ve got it wrong. We’ve got Wal-Mart telling people to sign up for government medical care. That’s conservative? I don’t think so! Perhaps if the minimum wage were higher people could afford little things like health care without turning to big government!
I think this is where Republicans make mistakes. We need to do things like raise the minimum wage. We need to pick up some of the people who are fiscally liberal, but socially conservative. These are votes we can get.
Conservative Republicans did very well in May in Pennsylvania. However, we’ll likely get crushed in November. We may lose both the state House and state Senate because we’ve nominated people who are too exclusive. The SCOTUS just ruled in the Texas redistricting case that legislatures can redraw districs whenever they want. Assume the worst-case scenario: we lose the House, Senate, and the Dems hold the governorship (sadly it’s a possibilty). The Dems will redistrict even more Rs out of seats. We have to learn to be more inclusive and look at both sides of an issue. Sometimes to keep the dog happy you have to throw it a bone. I think this is a good bone to throw.