To tackle the minimum wage is to confront political gamesmanship at its worst—and to do so would be to confront one of the major issues that is destroying this nation.

 

If you are an advocate for limited government as envisioned by our nation’s founders, we have a lot of serious issues that are destroying our nation.  If we hold off on addressing some of the politically difficult issues—we are surely to lose the battle—just as we have for the past 100+ years.

The first attempt at establishing a national minimum wage came in 1933, when a $0.25 per hour standard was set as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act. However, in the 1935 court case the United States Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional, and the minimum wage was abolished.  Following FDR’s court packing scheme, the minimum wage was re-established in the United States in 1938, once again at $0.25 per hour ($4.10 in 2012 dollars). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States

Minimum wage workers account for 4.7 percent of hourly paid workers in 2012

March 25, 2013

In 2012, there were 3.6 million hourly paid workers in the United States with wages at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. These workers made up 4.7 percent of the 75.3 million workers age 16 and over who were paid at hourly rates. In 2012, 6 percent of women who were paid hourly rates had wages at or below the prevailing federal minimum, compared with about 3 percent of men.

 

Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers paid by the hour, about 21 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of workers age 25 and over.

The industry with the highest proportion of workers with hourly wages at or below the federal minimum wage was leisure and hospitality (about 19 percent). About half of all workers paid at or below the federal minimum wage were employed in this industry, the vast majority in restaurants and other food services. For many of these workers, tips and commissions supplement the hourly wages received.

 

 

If you have never read the book by Marvin Olasky, THE TRAGEDY OF AMERICAN COMPASSION, you should.  The saga behind today’s government programs is truly a war on the values that made America a great nation!  The book shows how we are bankrupting our nation by doing the exact opposite of what genuinely helps the disadvantaged. 

 

We would rather pay people to sit on their ass and complain than to work below a government arbitrarily established minimum wage.  What utter stupidity and we go for it. 

 

Unfortunately, conservative types seem to be more interested in wanting to cut back on government programs that subsidize the poor than demanding solutions (like eliminating the minimum wage or creating exceptions to it) so the currently unemployable can find work.  Better to have the poor working at $2 to $5 (or whatever) an hour and developing some sound work habits and skills than being idlers.  In the meantime, let them keep collecting their government subsidies—at least until they get solidly on their feet.  Better they work than not.  I hear no common sense on this issue—just politicians pandering for more costly and unproductive government programs.  Make no mistake about it—it is government that created the mess.  So don’t expect them to be capable of fixing it.

 

Maybe, if we abandoned the minimum wage, cut back on frivolous lawsuits, and demanded that able bodied welfare recipients work at some (non-government) job in order to retain their government subsidies, we might be able to once again start competing in the global economy on production that has been farmed out overseas.