Michele Bachmann Would Consider Lowering the Minimum Wage
Every day you see something that makes you wonder: are some of the current crop of Republican conservatives engaged more in a race to obliterate any semblance of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” more than they are in a race to try and win the White House? That has to be it. Otherwise, why would Michele Bachmann say something like this at a time when so many people are hurting and either can’t find jobs or find that their hours are cut or health benefits not enough?
I’ll repeat it again. The people who seem so almost casually ready to make life tougher on Americans who are struggling are usually people with big fat bank accounts, government health care plans because they’re in Congress or ideological media types who have private jets (why don’t all these people who can’t get jobs just get radio shows where they can demonize a political party for three hours a day like they do?).
Bachmann’s comments prove a)she is not as mainstream as she has been trying to prove, b)Ed Rollins is doing a poor job of advising her c)she is not listening to Ed Rollins.
18 Responses to “Michele Bachmann Would Consider Lowering the Minimum Wage”
“Love her positions”…?
I’d like to meet some of these people whom go to sandwich shops and “love” her positions. They must be some real wiz-bangs I’m sure.
I have a problem with the premise of this article – the minimum wage does not protect the poor! It actually makes job creation more difficult. People might “feel good” that they are supporting a minimum wage in defense of the underprivileged, but it is a counterproductive regulation.
Here’s a balanced view of the pros and cons on minimum wage increases: http://www.balancedpolitics.org/minimum_wage.htm
Where’s the evidence minimum wages hurt the poor? The right is exceptionally resistant to empirical evidence. The recent Rick Perry interview, where his defense of the failure of abstinence education, based on the fact it was less of a failure than other programs he pushed, is a case in point. The right defends failure after failure, such as banking deregulation (ironically, Texas has some of the strongest bank regulations in the US, which is one reason why it didn’t feel the effects of the meltdown like other states did). The right’s whole ideology is based on supply side mythology.
Where’s the evidence that minimum wages help the poor?
One of the problems that unemployed people are running into is the fact that there’s a point where they can’t get the job experience needed to get a job. We are building up a large group of “structurally unemployed”, who are no more employable than criminals (which is another problem).
The only alternative in these cases, is for that person to work for themselves, in order to avoid the law. That’s tough for people who have no experience being their own business.
We actually don’t have to argue how the minimum wage affects job creation. We have participated in a fifty year experiment in slowly lowering the minimum wage. The minimum wage peaked in the 1960′s. Since then it has slowly gone down as it has been eaten up by inflation. While it was sporadically raised it never kept up with inflation, in fact overall, it dropped by 12%.
But this isn’t even the most important number. During the same time span, productivity increased by 120%. This means, by the way, that not only do you accept that it is reasonable to pay people less over time to produce more than twice as much, what you want to do now is pay them even less. Because you, and the thousands of unnamed economists in your balanced view web site, feel that it will produce more jobs.
Of course, an increase in productivity has the same effect as lowering the wage. You get more product for the wage dollar. Why haven’t we seen a huge jump in the number of jobs because of the productivity gains? But if employers can’t or won’t create more jobs from a more than doubling of productivity what makes you think that they will create more jobs from a few percentage point drop in the minimum wage? It seems like fantasy.
If you are still not convinced let’s continue. Let’s ask ourselves how many jobs were created by the 12% drop in the minimum wage? How many more minimum wage jobs are there in the United States now than there were fifty years ago, as a percentage of the population? (I’m assuming you are not proposing that lowering the minimum wage will result in an increase in higher paying jobs. There have to be limits even in purely fact free, faith based economics!) Is it a linear function, do you expect that there was a 12% increase? Or do you expect more jobs to be created than the decrease in the wage, say 15% more? It would seem to be a step back if there were fewer, say only a 5% increase, wouldn’t you agree?
Well, I am sorry to inform you that the percentage of minimum wage workers has actually decreased. Data has only been kept on this since the late 1970′s but the number of minimum wage workers is less than half of what it was then.
Let’s see, minimum wages adjusted for inflation are less today than the 1970′s. Given our shared sacrifice, I/m sure the wealthy and uber-wealthy earn less today than 40 years ago.
There are plenty of good people of all ages who work for the minimum wage, or very close to it. They work their asses off too. Many of these people used to be professionals, and many are young people who can’t find anything else. Ever work your butt off for 7.50 an hour and try to live on it? If you think the minimum wage is too high you truly don’t know what you’re talking about. I couldn’t say that any nicer.
And by the way, I don’t buy that job creation BS for a second. It’s just another bogus talking point that belongs in a museum.
Just a quick comment here after my jumping in once in a while to comment on problem threads. This is a VERY GOOD and serious discussion here.
It’s not job creation, it’s work experience. Talk to anyone who went through Great Depression I and you’ll find that a lot of people were working for almost nothing, which is what got them through the hard times.
Wage and price controls have had the same effect in all markets throughout time. This one is no different.
@Prof
Today’s recession is also hurting professionals with vast work experience. How should a bank VP or project engineer pad their work experience flipping burgers at McDonalds?
@Rudi
You just answered your own question. The biggest resumé poison is a dead spot with no work experience at all.
At the same time, it’s not the professionals who are suffering the brunt of GD II, at least not yet. The far bigger problem is with the blue collar crowd.
I’m not voting for the woman but that is hardly a ringing call for lowering the min wage. I also don’t know many jobs that pay min wage anymore even now. Wal-Marts here pay more, major fast food pays more, I’m not sure that lowering the min wage would make much difference one way or the other. I do think that buisnesses that use a lot of students or young people could benifit from a lower min wage and so could the students. “Starter” jobs are, so I’ve been told, hard to find right now and anything that gets more young people employed is a good thing.
The National min wage is $7.25 with standard work week and overtime NOT guaranteed.
Even a Slave has to be fed and housed so cutting the min wage would not be cost effective because the employer would then be required to afford those costs. Much cheaper to expect the slaves to provide for themselves and why waste profit on improving their lot to begin with? Let them scurry for their own crumbs. We have jets to buy.
Cutting the minimum wage will only benefit the wealthy/stockholders. There’s been a lot of talk of how corporations are sitting on record amounts of cash. Even though the stock market has roughly doubled (almost, since it’s gone down in the last few weeks) companies still aren’t hiring. Many companies have big profits.
Reducing minimum wage might help mom and pop shops, but (as others have pointed out) try living on it.
But lower minimum wages for large companies just means even more money for the wealthy.
If Michele is serious about lowering wages she can start by lowering the salaries and benefits of Congress.
Not everyone subject to the minimum wage is trying to live independently. The law doesn’t, and can’t, distinguish between those trying to live independently and those who have other sources of income, with the exception of some sub-minimum categories.
Also, no one has addressed the problem of how to break (back) into the work force if you’ve been unemployed for a period of time.
Lastly, companies are building up reserves to weather the extended downturn. Until the financial mess is fixed, they’re going to be extremely cautious.
It’s clear to me there is a LOT of misinformation out there. Of course that’s never stopped people from being opinionated eh.
Absent actual experience in this sort of life (and I’ve had it) check out this book. The problem is, it was written 10 years ago and the problem is even worse now. Folks who were making it comfortably then are now hurting. We are talking about a third of Americans btw, not some fringe group. This ISN’T about pulling yourself up from bootstraps either. Not these days.
The book is, “Nickel and Dimed in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich.