The people over at Red State, including Congressman Jeb Hensarling, are offering a false choice when it comes to the Minimum Wage. EITHER more employment OR more wages is their mantra. But when it comes to actual facts, they completely ignore them.
One of the most common arguments made against raising the minimum wage is the specter of unemployment. But in fact, the unemployment rate was no worse there than in the US even though their wage is over twice that of ours.
The other argument opponents like to make is that it will trigger inflation. But in fact, despite having a minimum wage that is twice that of ours, the UK currently has an inflation rate that is 2.7%, which is a manageable rate of inflation.
There is a reason for all this -- when people get a higher minimum wage, they have more money in their pockets. That creates more disposable income, leading to more spending. This creates more demand for products, leading to the creation of more jobs in order to produce the goods that are needed to fulfill the product demand. And who would be affected most by the minimum wage? Congressman Hensarling answers the question:
The truth is that more than half of minimum wage earners are young Americans.
Young people need the extra money because they are being slapped with increasing college debts. More and more, they are forced to borrow money to get a college degree, leaving them tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Therefore, it is vitally important that we give them a head start so that they can pay down the debts faster and be able to live debt-free sooner.
Next, Hensarling points out that only 10-12% of people who earn the wage are sole earners in households with children. He furthermore states that 1 in 5 live below the poverty line. But these figures are simply too high. Just because such people are in the minority does not mean their needs do not matter.
Next, Hensarling states this:
According to a survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association, after the last wage increase in 1996, 146,000 jobs were cut from payrolls and plans to hire an additional 106,000 employees were delayed.
But first of all, he is simply isolating a single statistic to "prove" his point. He gives no other figures from other industry sectors from that time period so that we can determine if other sectors were similarly affected.
Secondly, he is arguing from a cum hoc fallacy; he is stating that the restraunt industry cut jobs at the same time that the 1996 Minimum Wage went into effect; therefore, the Minimum Wage caused the job cuts. But there are many reasons that jobs are cut. Many jobs were cut during that time frame because of the explosion of technology; that meant more and more tasks that were previously done by humans were now done by machines. For the last 15 years or so, more and more companies has found ways for people to combine tasks and consolidate; that trend was becoming common. Some companies cut jobs and consolidate positions so that they can demonstrate stronger earnings and impress their shareholders. These job cuts could have been for some reason that affected that particular sector. There are many reasons that companies cut jobs that have nothing to do with the Minimum Wage. And many are not even affected because they pay more than the minimum wage in order to attract better workers.
Then, he defeats his own case with this statement:
In fact, nearly 70% percent of minimum wage employees receive raises within the first year of employment.
If that is the case, then he just made our point for us -- raising the minimum wage is a needed step that does not harm companies in any substantial way, that creates more disposable income and thus more jobs, and that is needed to help our young people pay off their college debts.
If raising the minimum wage will really help those most in need, why not raise it to $50 or even $100 per hour?
First of all, nobody is arguing that we should raise it that high. Secondly of all, he commits another logical fallacy known as a Hasty Generalization -- he implies from that statement that the consequences of raising the minimum wage to $50 would be the same as it would if it was raised to $7.25 an hour. Hensarling is drawing a general rule from an atypical example. But as we have seen above, there is no job loss and no inflation from a minimum wage that is twice that of ours.
According to Thomas Sowell, the overwhelming majority (approximately 85 percent) of economists in North America conclude that minimum wage laws reduce employment, particularly for the young and least experienced.
This is another logical fallacy known as an Appeal to Popularity. After all, just because 85% of the economists in this country believe a minimum wage would be harmful, that means that it is. But the majority has been wrong on plenty of issues in the past, such as slavery and segregation. The other 15% might have very good reasons for holding the opinions that they do.
And Thomas Sowell is hardly the paragon of objectivity that Hensarling makes him out to be. He is a GOP propagandist who supports the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry, among other things. People like him do not represent the Black Community, have had none of their formative experiences in the Civil Rights or Black Power movements, and get all of their recognition and funding from the very people who are directly descended from the segregationists. Clarence Thomas is perhaps the best-known example.
Black conservatives are few in number, with few exceptions have no name recognition in the African American community, have little to no institutional base in our community, have no significant Black following, and have no Black constituency. Indeed Black conservatives' highest visibility is in the white, not the Black community. It is due primarily to their ties to white conservative institutions that Black conservatives have come to be viewed as spokespersons for the race, despite lacking a base in the African American community. Conservative think tanks such as the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation (which has even implemented a minority outreach program), and conservative foundations such as the Olin Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, and the Bradley Foundation sponsor Black conservatives in numerous ways.
White conservative institutions award Black conservatives fellowships, consultant work, directorships, and staff positions. They also provide public relations services which get Black conservatives television and radio appearances, help get editorials, opinion pieces, and articles by Black conservatives into mainstream, even liberal, newspapers and magazines, publish articles and books by Black conservatives, and sponsor workshops and conferences by and for Black conservatives.
In fact, there is a racist element in Hensarling’s argument – he implies in his piece that the needs of people in poverty and single mothers – a disproportionate number of which are Black – do not matter, given his dismissal of their concerns because they are in the minority. This is a perfect example of how right-wing political thought is segregationism repackaged for modern consumption. The same line of reasoning could have been used 50 years ago to say that only 14% of our people are Black; therefore, we do not need affirmative action or desegregation.