Listen to that rumble; it's the sound of cattle stamping their feet.Of all the unintended consequences of the minimum wage hike - I actually didn't even THINK about this one. Then again, I'm not addicted to government welfare, so it never occurred to me.The minimum wage debate rolls on and on, even with several cities, including Seattle, imposing the job-killing $15 wage on employers. And we've already seen the impact it's had on businesses in those cities. But this - it's so sad that it's actually funny (and then it's sad again).According to this, employees of a non-profit group in Seattle who've achieved their glorious goal of the $15 minimum wage are actually asking their employers for FEWER hours. The reason? Now that they make more money, they no longer qualify for subsidized housing. So they figure if they work fewer hours, they'll make less money and they can stay in their government-provided cheap apartments -Nora Gibson is the executive director of Full Life Care, a nonprofit that serves elderly people in housing and nursing facilities and is also on the board of the Seattle Housing Authority.She recently had five employees who earn $13 and hour request to reduce their work hours in order to remain eligible for housing subsidies.“This has nothing to do with people’s willingness to work, or how hard people work. It has to do with being caught in a very complex situation where they have to balance everything they can pull together to pull together a stable, successful life,” Gibson said.BUT WAIT! (as they say) THERE'S MORE!Justine Decker is a full-time student with a 3-year-old son and a part-time job, says she doesn’t want to work full time because if she makes too much, it cuts into her subsidies for rent and childcare.“A one-bedroom can cost upward of $1,200. And so imagine paying that, and paying childcare which can be $900 something dollars,” Decker said.Sooooo... the point of a higher minimum wage wasn't necessarily so you could provide things like housing and food and childcare for yourself - it was just to have more money for whatever else you wanted while the government continues to provide all the free/cheap stuff they were giving you BEFORE you got the minimum wage raise? You mean that even when people don't have to be totally dependent on the government, they still WANT to be?
Friday, July 24, 2015
Reason number gazillion and nineteen why minimum wage is bad and wrong
Some brain-dead supporters of the idiocy are now saying, "whoa!"
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The war on poverty. Another war your post America is hanging onto long after it was lost. Wonder how we'll fare against the robots who are taking our jobs away in droves now. Don't expect corporate America to give a shit though.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you propose? Some kind of government-imposed limit on the degree of automation?
ReplyDeleteAnd it would behoove you to try to grasp the utter pointlessness of generalizing about "corporate America." It is as pointless as trying to generalize about the law enforcement field, or the investment-advising field, or insurance companies. You may be surprised to learn that much of "corporate America" leans sharply left, as evidenced by the fact that those at the forefront of the firestorm in reaction to Indiana's RFRA were such entities as Cummins, Lilly, Angie's List, Salesforce and Apple.
ReplyDeletestop generalizing about freedom haters, cattle masses, post-Americans and the like too then. And, no I am not surprised. I work in corporate America and I read stuff. This is a real problem we have here with robotics. Nothing is going to stop it because nothing ever has. I just wonder, don't you, how this all bodes for things for us to do in your post-America. The rage, distrust and hate levels are high now. What then? Regarding RFRA, Pence was a total idiot for not realizing which way the wind blew. Can he be reelected? Right now I seriously doubt it. I liked him better as a conservative radio host. He kind of got remote and arrogant as governor, ahh, but he's our favorite son, ain't he? I know of a local politician whose story sort of matches his.
ReplyDeleteYour ilk just are not going to change things to suit yourselves or your brand of living. Unless you garner a majority. Right now it looks like you are increasingly marginalized. Then you cry foul. Just because the wind is not blowing fully in your sails you cry foul. Things just are not being done the way we've always done it. Then it seems you fear for our God destroying us.
ReplyDeleteHere's where that argument falls down: How things are done or not is irrelevant in comparison to the immutable principles that inform how they ought to be done.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the pro-freedom, common sense and Western greatness crowd will have to come up with more effective ways to bring about the way things should be done, but that is the only question.
Of course you call Obama's economic recovery anemic, but it's smack dab way beyond the the middle of a robotics revolution that will accelerate into the talk of the world. And a huge conundrum. Immutable principles might not always inform our behavior as a leisure society if the present is prologue. Would you believe the cattle masses pray too? Hrrumph!
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