A new post on Steve Reick’s website:
Reaction to My Minimum Wage Proposal
I’ve received, and continue to receive a certain amount of ridicule for that proposal. David Ormsby made it the front page item on his Illinois Observer blog on February 3, chiding me for picking up where Bruce Rauner left off with his discussion of the matter.
Now, lo and behold, the Congressional Budget Office has issued a report which estimates that raising the Federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour will result in the loss of 500,000 jobs.
The White House is spinning this report, just as they did with the report from the same CBO that said Obamacare will ultimately cost the economy 2.3 million more jobs.
I don’t take comfort from these reports, because they affect real people, but I do claim certain vindication.
My proposal doesn’t assuage the sensibilities of those who don’t understand that the laws of supply and demand cannot be suspended and that reality is not optional. There’s a great article in the National Review online, which concludes by saying:
“The stagnant wages of low-income and middle-class Americans are a national scandal, but the solution to it must be an economic one rather than a political one… American workers need massive capital investment to raise the value of their labor; Democrats desire to tax it. Economic reality is non-negotiable, and passing a law against awful job markets and the wages associated with them will not make that reality go away.”
Steve Reick
As the value of labor is raised with capital investment (capital investment which is, by the way, fleeing Illinois in droves), wages will naturally increase to reflect that value.
Those wages, as opposed to wages artificially imposed by government regulation, are sustainable and a means by which a person can build a life.
I don’t know why it is that the same people who tell us that we can reduce smoking by raising the price of tobacco and that we can get more people to take mass transit by raising the price of gas can now say that raising the price of labor will not have the same effect.
The real minimum wage is $0.00, and it’s being paid to far too many of our fellow citizens who can’t find a job.
How about a maximum income level of a billion a year?
If billionaires can’t live on that how do they expect people who make minimum wages to survive especially since home prices, car prices, gas and food has gone up substantially.
The problem with your proposal is not that you would seek to lower the minimum wage.
The problem is that you want to create a separate class of workers.
This will not create more jobs, it will just take jobs from those who are 25 and older, and give them to those who are under 24, and less likely to have families to support, and mortgage payments to pay.
The minimum wage is a wedge issue carefully crafted by the Democrats.
As with all good wedge issues, the only real way for Republicans to win at this game is to not play it at all.
If Steve had any real support from the party, his handlers would have told him the same.