Back in 1960 I had a part-time job while in high school working for the City of East Orange, New Jersey. I earned seventy-five cents an hour and was happy to have the job. I worked each day after school and several hours on Saturday. That hourly rate is equivalent to $6.14 today; below the minimum wage. It never crossed my mind I was being underpaid.
After I graduated high school six months later I was able to find my first real job to begin my career earning $1.49 an hour for a major US corporation, I was really glad to have that job too‼️ That $1.49 is equal to $11.88 and hour, above the minimum today, but well below what protesters claim as the value of $15.00 for their unskilled labor.
I was unskilled too, I was a mail boy. My goal was not to be the lowest paid person at the same dead-end job forever. I suspect remaining unskilled and in the same job even with raises each year (it was a union job), would not have gotten me very far in life.
And guess what, raising the minimum wage is not going to change many minimum wage earners lives unless they decide to make more important changes themselves… despite the populist rhetoric from the left. Earning the minimum wage is the symptom, not the problem.
Raising the minimum wage will not make is easier for hard-working Americans to get ahead, but it may make it easier for many to tread water.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Dick, I worked at a “five and dime” for $.85 an hour. I too was grateful to have that job!
Deacon Peter Cistaro
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There is a mentality acquired over time that the government has the answer to everything. It was not the answer in 1938 for adopting a ‘MWL’ @ $0.25 per hour. Or all the subsequent raises over the past 77 years. It was 10 years (in 1948) before it was raised to $0.35 ph. There were plenty of people who developed an understanding of how the system works and made millions.
Education is/was the answer, not government mandates. That is how it should work. To the politicians, all it takes is for the government to set up these programs and everything will run smoothly. The problem is corruption within the system, the politicians who want more control. There are those that think we should turn everything over to the unions. What a mess that would be!
A child needs work experience and education(they are one in the same) and the ‘MWL’ denies that to them. The amount of money one earns from his/her labors is a bonus. There are lots of proposals out there suggesting we pay students to go to school for their education.
ABOLISH THE ‘MWL’!
RHS
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