OMG Folks. When did we lose our sense of reason? We were on vacation in Colorado. It was like watching from the Crazy Train. Everywhere you look there are signs: HELP WANTED. Along with those, there are others which proclaim: $15.00 MINIMUM WAGE at fast food joints. At one McDonalds there was even a sign: HOUSING AVAILABLE. We cam upon a sandwich shop that was only opened at the drive-thru window because they couldn’t get enough staff to open the dining room even though they were offering $15 an hour. These are entry level jobs. When did we equate “minimum wage” with “living wage?”
My first job, driving a grain truck – $2.00 an hour – of course I was just a teen. The corporate job that gave me the layoff – I started as an hourly employee for $3.35 in 1985. The Federal Minimum Wage was introduced in 1938 at 25 cents an hour. It took 23 years for it to break a dollar an hour, which was in 1961 when it went up to $1.15. In the first fifty years of its existence the minimum wage rose by $3.10. In 2009, the FMW reached $7.25 per hour, an increase of $3.90 in a twenty-eight year period. If the FMW were to go to $15 now as many are clamoring for, it would be a $7.75 increase over a twelve year period. Wages are the largest expense a business has, and rising wages, while initially helping employees, raises the cost of living for the very employees it is intended to help.
I get that a low minimum wage is hard to live on, but that’s not what it was intended to be. It was intended to give young people, unskilled workers, temporary workers, and those seeking part-time work an opportunity to enter the job market. IF YOU ARE STILL EARNING MINIMUM WAGE AFTER TWO YEARS OF EMPLOYMENT, You either have absolutely no drive to better yourself, or you work for a joke of a company. If your employer isn’t offering you an opportunity to advance (assuming you are worth a shit), then you need to take the skills, experience, dedicated work time, and positive reviews you’ve earned, and skip your happy ass down the road to someplace that will give you those opportunities.
RIGHT NOW, there are jobs everywhere waiting to be had. Yeah, maybe UNCLE SAM and COVID has given you a reason to stay home by earning more on unemployment than by getting a check (although there was once a time when the American Worker would be embarrassed to do this). However, there will come a day when the easy train runs off the track, and then that good job that was begging you to come and apply — it’ll be long gone. You’ll be standing in line, crying about how bad you have it. Get off your butt and grab the good jobs while someone else sucks off the teat of society.
Another crazy thing about those fast food places offering $15 minimums, the very source of their workforce is the group most afeard of Covid, hesitant of getting back into society, and they are reaping the greatest joy from being paid to stay out of the workforce. They are trying to buy workers to fill a low skilled job and their prime targets are not giving it a thought.
So, what happens next to these low skilled jobs? They get filled by computers and automation. Look at the number of fast food places that are using Kiosks where there once was a pimple faced kid standing behind the counter. That’s right. The $15 PER HOUR group has advocated itself out of a place in the workforce.
I wish I thought we could pull ourselves out of this craziness, but it seems that a significant segment of our society has gone over the edge. When nearly half your society thinks that the Government owes you a living wage, you just can’t pull back from that. FOLKS, you are the government. The government doesn’t have any money to pay a living wage unless they take it from you.
Maybe… just maybe… we need an Entry Wage – intended for young adults (let’s say ages 15 thru 20), and a minimum wage for unskilled workers just entering the workforce (starting where the entry wage ends at age 20). This would give employers the ability to hire for unskilled jobs, and give young adults a better opportunity to get into the workforce. What we can’t do is think that a minimum wage is supposed to be equal to a living wage or that entry level individuals should make the same wage as those who are skilled or developed.
We also can’t keep pushing the cost of operation on businesses higher and higher with demands of higher pay, more health care, and retirement programs which raise the cost of living on us all. All business are in business for a profit and when profits are cut by added expenses, their only recourse is raising the price of products and services. It doesn’t take a degree in economics to understand that those expenses get passed on to the consumer and the consumer includes the very employees the increases were supposed to help.
