It looks like California is going to raise the minimum wage to $10/hour. I don’t need to tell the crew here what a job killer this will be. I will point out something my friend James Hansen posted on Facebook:
By 1964 Standards: Minimum wage was $1.25 per hour. $.25, (a quarter) was pure silver. Today those 5 quarters are worth $28.50. So….$15.00 is the equivalent of $.63 per hour in 1964. This is what your government has done to the monetary system in 60 years simply by continuing to print money!! You really think you are better off?
Think about this: minimum wage workers would be almost three times more prosperous today if our money actually had tangible value. It ain’t about the money in politics. It’s about the politics in money.
Comments 5
So what you are saying is that even at $10 per hour, today’s minimum wage workers are making less than half and barely more than a third of what minimum wage workers made in 1964.
Do you still think the $10 per hour is excessive.
“Do you still think the $10 per hour is excessive.”
That is a great question because it represents how pervasive Keynesian economics is today. The answer is “absolutely” and here’s why: everybody’s dollars are being devalued, including the business owner’s.
Q: Why not just set the minimum wage at $100,000/annum and eradicate poverty?
A: Because the prices for the goods or services would skyrocket
The question, while well meaning, discounts that currency inflation is an awful wealth transfer from the middle class to the wealthy. It rigs the game and destroys prosperity for workers, makes projections for businesses impossible, and is essentially “taxation without legislation”.
Raising the minimum wage results in less jobs,especially for those who need it most, The policy is not by design but by result, racist.
The answer is to stop printing money so that business owners and their employees have a fair standard by which to judge production.
Brian,
You bring up two interesting questions which though worthy of discussion were not the point of my response:
1. Is setting a minimum wage a good idea at all?
2. Is it good to have any inflation and if so, how much?
My question was very specific and I will rephrase it in the hopes of getting a direct answer:
Since we do have a set minimum wage and have had one for quite some time, shouldn’t minimum wage earners in 2013 get the same purchasing power from their hourly wage that minimum wage earners got in 1964?
“Since we do have a set minimum wage and have had one for quite some time, shouldn’t minimum wage earners in 2013 get the same purchasing power from their hourly wage that minimum wage earners got in 1964?”
Good on ya, HQ. When you put it like that, you might get me to actually support a minimum wage hike.
I”m still against the minimum wage because of the damage it can do to poor people. More people need to get on that economic ladder. So… as much as I liked the way you put it to me, I’d be against the minimum wage hike because it creates higher unemployment
Brian,
Can you cite me a peer reviewed study that supports your contention that a minimum wage hike causes more unemployment? I am not suggesting that you can’t but I would like to read one before we continue this discussion.