Minimum Wage NWA Times

It might just be my suspicious nature, but I see that raising the minimum wage will do more harm than good. It sounds politically correct to advocate raising the minimum wage so that it will help workers in the lowest wage positions. We all claim we feel sorry for them and how they need more money to live. That of course is true, they need more money in order to live. Its almost impossible to support yourself, let alone a family, on $5.15 an hour, especially when so many companies won’t keep you on full time either. The lowest wage people have to have at least two or more incomes coming in to a household just to get by, unless they live with their parents, or in a cardboard box.
The place where my suspicious nature comes in is that if we pay these workers this higher minimum wage, it will just give employers the incentive to restructure their pay scale so they can absorb the higher costs with no increase, and then pass those new “fake” higher costs on to the consumer. Everyone up the ladder, with the exception of the CEO, will have to take a hidden pay cut where raises will be slower, or won’t be as much, or other benefit cuts will take place to keep labor costs relatively stable.
Most people in this country won’t make the connection of higher corporate profits as a result of having to raise prices in order to cover the fake higher costs. Like with the oil and pharmaceutical companies, we Americans seem to buy their excuse that while they are making record profits they claim its their higher costs that are the reason. They think we are too stupid to see that higher costs are deductible and profits come after all those deductions, including R&D and exploration costs. Corporations will just be able to raise prices claiming that they have to do it so they can cover these higher costs, which they have successfully absorbed, and new record profits will then ensue, need I mention outsourcing?
The higher costs of course will hurt the small business the most which can’t absorb labor costs as easily. It will hurt the minimum wage people if the higher costs eat up their higher wage, or more. And it will hurt all other consumers with higher costs of everything they buy, especially for example, everyone living on social security. In the end it just creates a new, higher level of wages and prices in which no one wins. It simply reduces the value of the dollar which is code for inflation. The minimum wage workers, who are almost always the newest workers at any company and are on probation anyway, will enjoy their new found money only briefly until prices catch up and we are right back where we are now. Higher minimum wages sound good for politicians to say but as usual it doesn’t work in the real world.

Raising the Minimum Wage

I consider myself an independent, and vote democratically most of the time just because the choice is so pitiful. Its the lesser of two evils, or the independent candidate which is unacceptable and can’t be voted for. Which means there is only one choice, not the heartless republican. This leads me to being forced to make Mike Beebe the choice for governor. I’m not in favor of all of his policies including the one for raising the minimum wage. It sounds good on the surface, and he hopes to use it to get votes though most minimum wage people don’t vote, but its wrong for Arkansas and America.
Raising the minimum wage in a vacuum would be fine, but we don’t live in a vacuum. it’s the real world with outsourcing of jobs, benefit cuts to pay for higher costs, and raising prices. Inflation is the keyword here and the higher costs just result in a restructuring of the pay scale to absorb these costs with no increase for the employer. They then are free to raise prices claiming its to pay for the “fake” higher costs, and all of us are the victims. Once again we stupidly vote against our own interests. Minimum wage is for the newest of workers and is only probationary, for most, they don’t remain at that level long. Giving the employers an incentive like this is just another corporate giveaway veiled in helping the poor. We shouldn’t accept this, even from the lesser evil.