Liberty Bell Blues

A Philadelphia conservative tries to stay sane in a city full of liberals

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Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Sunday, February 11, 2007

New wage boost puts squeeze on teenage workers. This situation in Arizona illustrates what will happen across the country if and when the national minimum wage is increased:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0210biz-teenwork0210.html

If you are a liberal and you have read the above article and still do not understand basic economics, I will try to clear things up for you. The minimum wage is not supposed to be a wage that adults make a living on. It is an entry-level wage, meaning that unskilled and inexperienced laborers (including teenagers who need money for car insurance) can gain work experience and buy cool clothes and CDs as well. People who need to earn more money than the minimum wage need to better themselves to rise above it. That is the beauty of living in America. We are free to improve ourselves, and this freedom has resulted in higher standards of living for all of us. I know that liberals like to wallow in class envy, and whine about what John Edwards calls "two Americas". But if you want to see what real poverty looks like, try visiting a third world country some day. Very few people achieve the American dream overnight. Many people have started small and worked their way up to prosperity. But such people need a starting point, and if the minimum wage is increased, fewer teenagers or other inexperienced laborers will have opportunities to work their way up. This will stunt the growth of our work force.

Here's another thing that liberals need to understand, but apparently never will: businesses do not have unlimited supplies of money, especially not small businesses. Businesses are started so that the entrepreneurs can earn a living for themselves. If jobs are created in the process, that's great, and it helps our society as well as individuals. But people do not start businesses because they look forward to hiring numerous employees and paying them federally mandated wages. If that were the motivating factor for business owners, there wouldn't be any businesses created. Businesses rely on profits to exist, let alone to prosper. If you mandate an increase in the minimum wage, it eats away at the necessary profits that many businesses need to survive. What do the businesses do about this? They will often cut other costs to offset the new costs. This often results in jobs being lost, and a decline in the quality of the goods and services being produced. Another thing that businesses will do to keep their necessary profit margins is: raise prices. Yes, we all will pay for the minimum wage increase through higher prices. That includes the people who get their wages increased. Doesn't really help them much, if at all.

If Democrats really want low-wage workers to take home more pay, why not consider a tax cut for low-wage workers? Oh, no! We can't have that! Our government needs all the tax revenue it can get in order to continue their wasteful spending. They can't do with a penny less, so they will force employers (the creators of job opportunities) to give up the money instead.

It's always easier to lay responsibility at someone else's feet, isn't it?

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