Raising the Minimum Wage

Think of it like this: you own a business.  How many workers are you going to hire?  Too many?  Too few?  Of course not.  You'll go for the "Goldilocks" point.  You'll want "just right."  You don't want too few to keep the customers content, nor so may that they're out back smoking dope when you're not around.

Perhaps you own a fast food joint — a franchise.  The company tells you what to charge and what to pay.  The minimum wage goes up — so what does the company do?

It either lets you pay your workers the new minimum wage, raise your menu prices, and stay in business, or it lets you go out of business, and lose whatever profits you earn for it.  What's more likely?

So the dollar menu is up to a buck and a quarter.  Will you lose customers?  Maybe.  The ten-year-old's allowance hasn't gone up, but your own workers, and workers employed by other sleazebags, now can afford to pay the buck and a quarter.  They pay it.

You're still in business.  The only difference is American taxpayers might not be subsidizing you by giving your workers SNAP (Food Stamps), nor quite so large an Earned Income Tax Credit.

Why in hell should American taxpayers be subsidizing Mickey D's or Wal-Mart or any of the other low-wage employers living off the fat of your ass?

Nobody working a full-time job should need government subsidies.  Nobody working a full-time job should go hungry, or have to watch hungry children try to fall asleep.

$10.10 by whenever isn't enough.  It should be fifteen or sixteen right about now.  People should not go without heat, or food, or a roof over their heads.

Fuck the free markets.  Fuck the Libertarians.  Do the right thing.