Minimum WAGE! Hee-yah!

An article from the esteemed pundit John Martin from www.strike-the-root.com has mentioned a few problems with a National Minimum Wage increase.

Luckily, I've already written an article that easily sweeps away all of his concerns. I suggest everyone read his article so that one can familiarize oneself with the so called argument from the Right, which would seem reasonable to the uninformed. Follow up with my short essay, The High Cost of Low Wages".

To respond further:

Notice that he doesn't bother to ask why any of those negatives to the economy occur. None of those so-called consequences are endemic like an immune response to the common cold. All of those actions are unnecessary and directed actions by corporate entities.

He doesn't mention that while there has been no mandatory minimum wage increase at the lowest echelons of production and service since 1997, which, according to him, would cause a significant economic downturn, there has been plenty of discretionary wage increases at the highest pay levels without any thought to the impact on the economy.

His so called fears about inflation are a veritable Red Herring as the introduction of the a minimum wage in 1933 did nothing to hurt the economy nor did it cause inflation. A look at reports of inflation before the minimum wage will show wild changes of inflation sometimes nearing 25%.

U.S. Department of Labor
Inflation Data

There has been a steady increase in the minimum wage since 1933 with no discernible correlation to inflation rates. On the contrary, after the establishment of a minimum wage, inflation remained more or less steady at around 3% with world wide economic shocks that never brought inflation much over 10% for more than a year. Moreover, after the last wage increase inflation average around a comfortable 2% for 3 years. Contrast with last year's inflation of over 4% after no wage increases for almost 10 years.

If this gentleman wants a true free market atmosphere without government interference, then, in addition to ditching the minimum wage he's going to have to give up taxpayer subsidies, neo-liberal trade policies, the U.S. Military whose "de facto role...will be to keep the world safe for our economy", and corporate bailouts by taxpayer dollar, all of which benefit large businesses and healthily moneyed elites, none of which benefit the taxpayers in the middle or the few at the bottom. With all of the government interference on behalf of businesses, I think one little minimum wage increase on behalf of the worker is only fair.

If not, we can get rid of all of government interference and negotiate wages the old fashioned way. Remember factory fires? Remember 13 hour days, 6 days a week? Eleven year olds toiling in factories, so fed up that these children went on strike? Remember those strikes being put down by bloody force? No, most people don't remember that. That's because some people want you to forget.