The Myth of the Minimum Wage Job

In 2019, many States will enact laws to impose a $15/hour minimum job wage.  Before we get giddy and pee our pants high fiving each other you might want to look at the math and other hard facts.

Let’s not and say we did.

History

A minimum wage is the lowest wage that employers may legally pay to workers. The first minimum wage law was enacted in 1894 in New Zealand. With the passage of The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), the U.S. minimum wage was initially set at $0.25 per hour for covered workers.

When he felt the time was ripe,
President Roosevelt asked
Secretary of Labor Perkins,
‘What happened to that
nice unconstitutional bill
you had tucked away?’

On Saturday, June 25, 1938, to avoid pocket vetoes 9 days after Congress had adjourned, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 121 bills. Among these bills was a landmark law in the Nation’s social and economic development — Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). Against a history of judicial opposition, the depression-born FLSA had survived, not unscathed, more than a year of Congressional altercation. In its final form, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented only about one-fifth of the labor force. In these industries, it banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours.1

THE MATH

The Left wants you to believe that they are fighting for the oppressed working class struggling to make ends meet with a $7.25/hour job.  Any one that has sat through a business class knows they are working to eliminate the Middle Class worker.

This was a 50 cent raise in 1996 and rom $4.25 to $4.75 on October 1, 1996 and to $5.15 on September 1, 1997.

When a business starts out it has a great demand for workers and pays it’s workers what it can afford.  When Disney started out the artists worked for free.  The Market Wage is the maximum wage an employer can pay and still make a profit.

You can see from the chart that if a business does not employ enough workers it cannot meet demand.  The workers they have will be overworked and look elsewhere for employment.  This happened to Disney and artists left to work for Warner Brothers.

On the right, when employees exceed the demand many stand around with nothing to do and wages paid become a net loss. When the Government imposed a wage hike instead of market force unemployment is created.

Employers will simply not hire workers at $15 per hour and they are being replaced with technology.

The Solution

Since raising the minimum wage increases unemployment, training is the solution.  Entry level employees should be trained to increase their skills and be promoted to higher paid jobs.  If someone has been working a minimum wage job for years both the employer and the worker have failed.  The employer by not training the worker and thereby making them a better asset to the company.  The worker for not seeking that training or seeking training elsewhere.

The Myth of a College Education

In my humble opinion, colleges and universities produce leftist thinking graduates. They then are placed in entry level management positions.  Think of the GS positions in government and you get the Swamp.

You do not need a degree for a management position.  Ask any McDonald’s manager.  They go to Hamburger University, an internal training school.  My wife wanted to be the financial controller of the company she worked for.  They hired someone with a bachelor’s degree in Massage Therapy and ignored by wife’s AA in business and accounting.

Here are some jobs that pay more that  a newly minted college graduate can get.

Commercial pilots.
Funeral service manager.
Power-plant operators.
Nuclear medicine technologists.
Postmasters and mail superintendents.
Dental hygienists.
Transportation inspectors.
First-line supervisors of non-retail sales workers.

FIND YOUR NEW JOB HERE.

17 jobs that don’t require a college degree and pay over $70,000 a year.

 

 

 

Your Job Does NOT Suck

Do you ever wonder where your poop goes when you go on an airplane? In the good old days it went “out”. Dumped in mid air. After more than a few people being bombed by frozen poop, the airlines decided to keep it. So the next time you’re boarding, please note that someone is under the aircraft emptying the shitter.

A few years back, this was my job. While working at Macarren airport, Las Vegas I was a baggage handler/ramp agent.  “Lavatory Servicing” was just one of many services we provided.It consisted of towing the Lav Cart from airplane to airplane, draining the poop and reservicing that “Blue Water” you see when you flush. The blue part is disinfectant. This will become an important bit of trivia later in this story.

Most folks didn’t like being assigned to the Poop Patrol but I took it in stride. Sometimes I put blue Kool-Aid in a clear Gatorade bottle and drink it as I towed the cart around. When asked what I was drinking I’d say it was disinfectant.  “Hey, it’s cheaper than drinking. Want some?” At Christmas time I’d wear a Santa hat. That got some looks from boarded passengers.

Servicing the Lavs on a 757.

Sometimes, lav servicing got interesting.  I was dumping the lavs of a Lufthansa 757.  The Germans do not use the blue juice because they like their poop chemically free. Did I mention that this draining can be “messy”? While I was dumping, the co-pilot was doing his walk around inspection. He eyed a suspicious trail of liquid on the belly of the aircraft. He wiped it with his finger and did a taste test. He then asked me, “Is this hydraulic fluid?” With the best straight face I have EVER mustered up I said “No”.

Sometimes Lav servicing can be tricky. I was dumping an Air Canada 767 one night. On the 767, the lav has a Donut style dump system. Rather than a valve you just open, it has a plug called a donut you have to remove. You can’t see the donut so you have to be careful to make sure it’s removed and reinstalled.

air-canada-b767-lav-service
Air Canada 767

The lav dump is back on the bottom of the tail so I was standing on the cart to reach it. I’m not the tallest person in the class so to attach the hose [refer to picture of cart, note hose] I have to stretch up and attach it over my head. Awkward at best.

On this particular night there was some icing. Frozen “leakage” was making it hard to hook up the hose. I started to fiddle with the donut but before I got it out I noticed that the hose wasn’t locked in. It was loose and if I dumped, the hose could fly off and shit would hit everything.

I decided to reattach the hose.

airbus-320-lav-serviceTo my horror, just as I twisted the collar to lock  the hose, poop came  rumbling through . I immediately tried to lock the hose. It didn’t. Because of the bend in the dump hose I’ve got about 60 pounds of poop in the hose that I’m holding up with my arms above my head. Also, because of the bend, there’s still more in the lav tank waiting to come out.

I’m trapped. The radio mic on my shoulder is my salvation. While holding the hose with one hand, I quickly key the mic and call my supervisor.

“Pete from Walt”

My hand flashes back to the hose.

“Go ahead for Pete”

“Where are you?” [Show my hand flashing back to hose.]

“On Air Canada”

“Come to the back please. [Hand flashes again, hose getting heavier].

So Pete comes to the back of the aircraft and sees my predicament. I’m hoping he’s going to jump up and help me. He says, “Let it go and jump back”. “WHAT????”, I scream. He patiently repeats himself. I let go the hose but don’t jump back. I don’t want to fall off the cart.

WHOOSH! I get a shit shower. EWWW  [EWW is not spelled with one W, that’s Entertainment Weekly].

Thank God for the disinfectant! I get the shit rinsed off in our safety shower but am left with tiny bits of toilet paper sticking to me all over my uniform.

I go back and start cleaning up the mess. By the time I get back, Pete has a crew with squeegees helping. They’re bitching until I walk up. Now they’re laughing their ass off.

Pete explains that the folks in Montreal didn’t get the donut all the back in when they serviced the lav. That left a tiny air gap which froze the water. During flight the ice pushed the donut all the way out and only a plug of ice was holding the poop back. Me banging the hose collar in a unsuccessful attempt to lock it in place dislodged the ice resulting in the WHOOSH.