The Secretary of Labor sent this via e-mail today:
The current national minimum wage of $7.25 just doesn’t cut it. Not when its value has been eroded by inflation. Not when it buys about 20 percent less than it did when President Reagan took office in 1981.
Raising the minimum wage isn’t just the right thing to do to strengthen families — it’s the smart thing to do to strengthen businesses: People would have more money to spend on goods and services. Businesses would see higher productivity and lower worker turnover, too. Without costing taxpayers a single penny.
Okay, let’s take this on its face, except if you assume taxpayers are also consumers in which case raising the minimum wage will be paid for by taxpayers.
In any case, it’s hard to reconcile the above with what you see below. Let’s just stick with it’s the right thing to do and stop the BS.
Source: Heritage Foundation
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
The big problem with a discussion of the ‘minimum wage law’ is the mentality of the issue. The entire concept of the ‘MWL’ is the inflation it causes throughout the economy of the country. If you increase the cost on one side of the equation, you will increase the price on other side.
In the early 60’s, when the ‘MWL’ went from $1.00 ph. to $1.35 ph., we had a refusal of business to hire children. It created a glut of children out of work. The unemployed children (in California) and elsewhere headed for the beach. It also happened at an interesting point in time, when the ‘baby boomers’ were just hitting the job market. We got ‘hippies’, ‘woodstock’, and a ‘drug culture’ out of it. Did I mention ‘free love’?
Maybe you have heard the term ‘latchkey children’? In the late fifties many of those marriages that produced all those babies called ‘baby boomers’ began to fall apart. The fathers disappeared and the mothers had to take jobs and the children were coming home to an empty house.
The minimum wage law did not solve any problems. It created many. And now, you children are debating the merits of a minimum wage law being raised again. In another point in time the next generation will be discussing the next level.
The problem, as I see it, is the concept of a ‘minimum wage’ was a bad idea in the first place. Children need ‘work’ far more than they need money.
The minimum wage law was and is a stupid idea!
RHS
LikeLike
Wilson: “The 13 states that have raised their minimum wages have enjoyed greater employment increases than have the states that have done nothing.”
Wilson, you seem to imply that the greater employment increases are the result of minimum wage increases. But it seems logical that states where the labor markets are the tightest, have higher wages as a result. The minimum wage increases are voted in by state legislatures in a delayed reaction to what is already happening in the labor market.
Historically, minimum wage increases have been modest. Here in Washington State, the City of Seattle is about to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour, the current state minimum is about $9.20. After being pummeled by all but the radical left, the mayor of Seattle announced the $15.00 will be phased in, beginning in 2015, with exceptions for “small businesses.”
Wilson, for a guy who claims to be fact driven, you don’t seem to dip in that well as often as you should. “Heritage Foundation vomits Teaparty propaganda.” No emotional baggage there, eh Wilson?
LikeLike
Mr. Quinn – Stick to the healthcare issues where you do get some respect and avoid economics and world politics where you are ill informed and / or ignorant.
Don’t litter your blog with shear garbage from The Heritage Foundation.
The Heritage Foundation is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage’s stated mission is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense”.
In short, The Heritage Foundation vomits Tea Party propaganda, supports the creation of an American Oligarchy and revels in further suppressing the least among us with widespread voter suppression and quality education for only the wealthy.
You and I are about the same age and are both white, grouchy curmudgeons. The difference between us is that your opinions and postings are products of your outdated, senile, 1980’s ideology and are completely devoid of facts while my postings are fact-driven, my awareness that this is year 2014 and are completely pragmatic. A case in point: The 13 states that have raised their minimum wages have enjoyed greater employment increases than have the states that have done nothing. Factually, therefore, the often trumpeted claim by Republican politicians, who are as ignorant as you are, that increasing the minimum wage will increase unemployment, are proved to be patently false and misleading to the American voters.
Moreover, your senile ideology and the outright lies emanating from the Tea Party/right wing/conservative/Republican ideologues are completely ignorant of and / or at complete odds with the opinions and desires of the American people;
GALLUP:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — With momentum building at the federal and state level to increase hourly base pay, more than three-quarters of Americans (76%) say they would vote for raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour (it is currently $7.25) in a hypothetical national referendum, a five-percentage-point increase since March. About one-fifth (22%) would vote against this.
In addition, your efforts to block my postings that do not agree with your dated ideology are obviously not working.
Sincerely, Wilson
LikeLike
First and foremost I have not and don’t intend to block your comments. In fact, I had wondered why you were so so quiet.
Second I have never used anything put out by the Tea Party and don’t even read it’s stuff. Actually the Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 long before anyone heard of the Tea Party.
As far as facts go, you seem to simply ignore any fact that doesn’t fit your ideology. In this case, consider how the inflation since 1981 does not match the DOL statement. Also, if you look at the facts presented in the Heritage material. It’s just facts, make what you will out of them.
Am I wrong that somewhere along the line consumers will pay for higher wages via the higher minimum and the domino impact on other wages? Not saying that’s a reason not to raise the minimum, just a fact. A fact ignored by the Administration in its rhetoric.
Finally, do you believe that raising the minimum is good for business as stated by supporters and if so can you explain why any smart business would forgo those advantages by holding down wages?
Just examine the facts and stop swallowing all the propaganda on face value. The left distorts as much as the far left.
LikeLike