Just Thinking About It
by James Glaser
May 9, 2011

I would guess that being a Libertarian would best describe my political affiliation, but some things kind of bug me about that political thinking, and Minimum Wage laws is one of them.

First off, Libertarians are always trying to tell me that the Minimum Wage Laws actually hurt workers. However, the people telling me this are usually economists by trade or avocation. They have college degrees, and even though at one time they might have worked for minimum wages or perhaps even lower pay, they don't today.

I think it is hard for many people in this country to understand that there are millions of Americans whose take-home wage never gets above that minimum wage. I mean never in their whole working life. Yes, people raise their families on what the rich would think of as pocket change. Here in Florida, the minimum wage was just raised to $7.31 an hour, effective June 1, 2011.

If you are a waiter or waitress, you only make $4.29 an hour, as the government assumes that you will make up the rest in tips. Of course that might not happen on a slow day, and with this economy, I bet tips are down in many cafes. Well, not only tips, but also the number of customers. People can't afford to eat out as often as they used to.

Even not taking out anything on the pay stub, minimum wage earners take home less than $60 dollars a day. Many Americans spend that much money eating out alone at dinner, and now that day's wage will not fill up many cars with a full tank of gas.

Here is how Wikipedia explains the American worker's income:

As a reference point, the minimum wage rate in 2009 was $7.25 per hour or $15,080 for the 2080 hours in a typical work year. The minimum wage is a little more than the poverty level for the 1 person family unit and about 50% of the poverty level for a family of four (see Poverty in the United States). Annual wages of $30,160; $45,240; $75,400; $150,800 and $1.5M correspond to 2, 3, 5, 10 and 100 times minimum wage respectively.

So, you can see that most workers are leaving that minimum wage earner in the dust with their take home pay. Higher income people, like our politicians and yes, economists have little experience to understand how that minimum wage earner can even live. After a while they convince themselves that all minimum wage earners must be high school students or college students working part time.

Here in rural Florida and in Northern Minnesota, both places I have lived, many, many people live, or maybe I should say, exist, on minimum wages. Many of these people have kids, and are way past school age. I know that is hard to believe, but drive down some back roads and look at old singlewide mobile homes. How about that old house that has not seen new paint in a generation and is in bad need of a new roof.

Government housing is filled with people working minimum wage jobs, and I guess the more affluent people who hire these people don't mind that it takes a lot of government tax help so these people are at least able to make it to work.

You might realize that people who employ people and pay them the legal minimum are themselves taking welfare. Those employers are subsidized by welfare, because that extra income from food stamps, lower rent, and any other program their workers can get on is what it takes to keep those people coming to work every day. They sure couldn't do it on just the minimum wage.

Free JavaScripts provided
by The JavaScript Source