I see they're up to the same old baloney. They're going to raise the minimum wage again. They do this every now and then, apparently to prove how much they care about the poor.
The idea behind the minimum wage is that there should be some minimum amount of money any person should pay another person to do work, and, of course, some minimum amount of money any person should be allowed to accept for doing work. Oddly enough, it is completely legal to work for no money at all, but it is not legal to work for some hourly rate between zero and the minimum wage.
What if your labor isn't quite worth the minimum wage? Then you must rely on someone being willing to pay you more than your work is worth, or else you must get along without any wage at all. Even with the minimum wage, it is still legal to work for less, so long as you're working for yourself and charging others some amount they're willing to pay for the results of your work, even if it's less than the minimum wage. And it's still legal to pick up aluminum cans and sell them to a recycler, even if you make less than the minimum wage while doing it.
The thing about the minimum wage is that it either causes unemployment among those with very low skills or poor job habits, or else it has no discernable effect at all. The minimum wage cannot increase the amount any given person's work in the marketplace is worth, even though that is exactly what its supporters mean to do. That is, in fact, impossible. It can only make those whose labor is not worth the minimum wage even worse off, by shutting them out of the hourly wage market.
So what should we do about the minimum wage? We should get rid of the whole stupid idea. Potential employers should be free to seek employees at whatever wage rates they're worth in the marketplace, and potential employees should be free to seek work at whatever rates their skills and job habits can command. The idea of a minimum wage makes no more sense than the idea of a maximum wage would. There have been times when laborers were limited to a legal maximum wage, and that caused a labor shortage when conditions called for higher wages. In the wake of the Black Death plague in Europe, the high death rate among the laborers drove up real wages, regardless of the labor laws. If there is a shortage of laborers, rates must go up. If there is a surplus, rates must go down. Politicizing the labor market, if it has any effect at all, can only be harmful.
(Continued)It occurred to me that some people might actually believe that: the minimum wage is a Good Idea; that the minimum wage really can increase the market value of the work done by people with low job skills and/or poor work habits; and that raising it to, say, $8 or $10 per hour won't do any harm. If the above claims are true, why are they considering raising the minimum wage from around $5 or $6 per hour to some figure slightly higher? Why not raise it to $100 per hour? If they really want to make the work of minimum wage earners more valuable, and if they are certain raising the minimum wage can't possibly cause any unemployment, why be so stingy? Why make it $8 or $10 per hour? Why not make it $100 per hour?
Oh, I know. A $100 per hour minimum wage would cause unemployment, and everybody knows it. Follow the logic here: people know a $100 per hour minimum wage would cause unemployment, but a $8 or $10 per hour minimum wage wouldn't. How do they know this? What is there about one figure, whether it is $100, or $40, or $20, that would cause unemployment, while a $8 or $10 figure wouldn't? Nothing. The fact is, any politically determined minimum wage, even one set at $1 per hour, is bound to cause at least some unemployment. A minimum wage set at, say, $4 per hour would cause very little unemployment. A minimum wage set at, say, $100 per hour would cause a lot of unemployment. So what minimum wage supporters are really saying, even if they don't understand it, is, "We're willing to have some politically induced unemployment so we can make sure no employers are taking advantage of their employees, but we want to keep the economic damage to a minimum. We're willing to let people with low job skills and poor work habits go without any wages at all, so long as it only affects a small portion of the population."
They don't believe their own bullshit, or else they would push for a minimum wage that really would afford a nice standard of living for the minimum wage earner - at least $100 per hour. They know that would be an economic disaster, that huge numbers of people would be completely unemployable, so they play around with small increases in the minimum wage that only do a little damage to the economy, and put a few people out of work - people they don't know, and don't care about anyway.
Back to my home place.