There’s an interesting post here on the repercussions of Seattle’s $15 an hour minimum wage. The idea of a $15 minimum wage is catching on in Chicago, too:
Supporters of a $15-an-hour minimum wage in Chicago said today that the time is right to introduce their plan to the City Council, despite moves from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and at the state level to go more slowly and possibly adopt smaller increases.
Speaking at a City Hall news conference prior to a council meeting, fast food worker Tanika Smith said she can’t make ends meet on her pay of $8.75 per hour. “My car note is $500 a month, my rent is about $500, food is going up, lights are going up,” she said.
The state minimum wage is currently $8.25 an hour.
Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, 1st, scoffed at the argument that a higher minimum wage would hurt business, saying the whole city would be better off if residents had more money to spend. “It’s not going to hurt business. It never has,” Moreno said. “It’s only raised those at the lower end.”
Clearly, it’s time to start hurling rocks through bakery shop windows. Think of all the jobs that will create for glaziers! If only they could figure out how to legislate a $7.75 an hour marginal product of labor, they’d really be on to something.
IMO if you favor a higher minimum wage, you should favor a higher national minimum wage, particularly if you live in a place like Chicago, whose metropolitan area borders two states, each of which has a lower minimum wage than Illinois’s current state minimum wage and a lot lower than $15 an hour. Otherwise we may be in for a future in which large areas of Chicago are not merely “food deserts” in the sense of no grocery stores that offer fresh fruits or vegetables but real food deserts in which there are neither grocery stores nor even fast food.
How many of these folks favoring an increased minimum wage are open borders proponents?
That’s mostly a rhetorical question, as of course everyone on the left is for making labor as abundant as possible.
No, the left is not for open borders. I’m not. Most of us are not. We’re for rationalizing the mess as it exists as opposed to fantasizing about magic fixes.
The problem of states racing to the bottom or alternately attempting impromptu vaults to the top is one of the reasons I find the attachment to the concept of states silly.
Who was the last major, successful Dem pol that was opposed to mass immigration into this country, or who didn’t want to give amnesty to those already here? He wasn’t major at the time, but I’m guessing it was probably Bill Clinton around 1980/81. By the 1990s he was of a different mind.
Chicago, R.I.P.
BTW – a $500/mo car payment? BMW is running an ad right now for $460/mo for their new 4 series. That woman must have a nice ride.
Wow, I don’t see how anybody can raise a family when a babysitter gets $15 per hour. A young professional new mother would be well advised to stay home, draw welfare and take care of her own children. I imagine we won’t miss that nurse or doctor.
A new mother who’s got a husband in the 60% tax bracket (tax+FICA) would have her first dollar taxed at 60%, meaning that it would be cheaper for her to stay at home with her baby then show up to work at her $75,000 per annum job.
Her guy will go on working, meeting new people, learning new things, advancing in his career, while she will gradually lose all her skills except for baby-talk. What a country!!!
Wow, I don’t see how anybody can raise a family when a babysitter gets $15 per hour.
If you’re not part of the ruling class raping the country, the first thing you do is forgo baby sitters.
Criminy! Her car note is $500!? I have an Escape I bought brand new from a Ford dealer, the years ago, and my nitre is HALF that, and I thought that was pushing what I was willing to pay on my income. ((Which is twice herd.)
So, I’m supposed to feel sorry for someone making foolish choices?
Of course, if the nubbly wage hours up. The real wage of people like me, low level professional, effectively plummets.