I find it interesting when most republicans speak against minimum wage they state the obvious, that most americans dont earn minimum wage.
What you fail to forget is when you raise minimum wage wages across the board go up, it happened last time and it will happen the next time.
Many jobs use their starting wage vs minimum wage as a selling point to attract employees.
This is kind of a slight of hand because even $7.00+ is not enough to live on in MOST parts of the U.S.A .
The question I have is what is so wrong with someone who actually works earning enough to live on?
Many conservatives will say that min-wage is just a starting point, that one should use that job to learn skills and move up, but there are 2 flaws to this arguement.
1. even if one tried this his/her odds are against them, to many things can go wrong, someone is more likely to loose his/her job because of car trouble being unable to save money to move up and become a better employee.
2. this way of thinking fails to concider that many people are starting over be it divorce, outsourcing, or just a screwed up economy.(like any number of people who live in factory towns inwhich their father and grandfather worked in the same factory).
Is it any wonder why conservatives are viewed as heartless?
I am not answering for James here, but consider that perhaps many conservatives may agree with you that the minimum wage is not enough to live on, and that it is not a good thing that many of Americans citizens are at the minimum (and we are not happy with that).
The argument is about whether the congress should regulate the minimum wage.
I for one, do find a significant problem with the minimum wage rates in the United States. I do not think it a fair wage for a fair days worth of work in most industry in America (IE. profits in most of these industries far outweigh the wages paid employees). I do have a bit of a problem with congress regulating things like wage rates however in that we have a free market system. I might disagree with James in that I would favor a minimum rate hike if no other action would be taken, but I generally do NOT favor a rate hike through congressional regulation in that many other actions can be taken (even by congress) that would raise the minimum rate by effecting the markets without directly regulating them (and give the American system a host of other benefits). Congress is well aware of this fact (of these alternatives).
IE. I generally agree with you that the minimum rate is too low, but the best and more appropriate method of raising that rate is not through a Federal Minimum Wage Rate hike.
When addressing the minimum wage everyone leaves out the obvious, the minimum wage does absolutly nothing but pander to the labor unions.
Labor unions are the biggest winner of the minimum wage because when the wage goes up so does the bargining power of the unions.
So if the minimum wage goes up two dollars an hour the unions will demand and get three dollars an hour raise for their memebers.
This is why Democrats are always seeking a raise in the minimum wage, the largest single contributer to the DNC is in fact the labor unions.
Never mind the fact that when the minimum wage goes up tens of thousands of minimum wage employees loose their jobs because the employers can no longer afford them.
Then again if you are a liberal the loss of jobs by those entry leval employees is irrelevent, to them it's the price of progress.
Commenting by HaloScan
