3334 The minimum wage smoke screen

I suppose I shouldn't complain that the Democrats will try to make hay with this. But it irritates me no end. In Ohio, the voters were dumb enough to add it to the Constitution through an amendment in November! So nationally, we couldn't get that bad.

A tiny fraction of people in this country (520,000 in 2004, mostly teen-agers, most in leisure and hospitality industry) work for minimum wage, and most of them are part timers on their way up to the next wage level who are not the sole support of their family. No fast food restaurant or motel around Franklin Co. Ohio is hiring at minimum--they are probably paying $7 or more to even get someone to finish filling out the application. Even our illegals are getting about $15/hour in the so-called "jobs that Americans don't want." In 1983 I worked for the Ohio Department of Aging on a grant from JTPA--Job Training Partnership Act. (Yes, I was on the dole--but I was a Democrat then.) I remember attending a conference on low income workers. At that time, 24 years ago, we were told that in order to offer a woman what she could get on welfare [Washington DC], she would have to have a job at $10.50/hour to make up for comparable housing subsidies, food stamps, free medical, free tuition, transportation, and pay for babysitting so she could work, taxes and insurance. That was 1983 money. So how ridiculous is it to look like your political party is a saviour of the low wage earner by raising minimum wage?

Every time Nancy Pelosi was on the news today, I changed channels, and finally put in a DVD of Boston Legal.

George Will's suggestion--let the market decide.