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.
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.
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.
