Minimum Wage Hike Another Step Forward, 2 Back?

Black WSJ columnist Jason Riley’s “The Minimum Wage’s Racially Discriminatory Roots” suggested the Dem push for a $15/hour raise will actually “curtail the abundance of black labor.”

House Speaker Pelosi begs to differ in promising to include the idea in the next Covid Stimulus bill because it supposedly means “27 million people will get a raise, 70% of them women.” Countered Mr. Riley: “In truth, Mrs. Pelosi has no idea how many people would see a raise because she doesn’t know how many people would keep their jobs. Employers may decide they can’t afford to pay someone a $15 hourly wage so workers could be let go or offered fewer hours as a result.” A new Congressional Budget Office report estimates that 1.4 million jobs would vanish "and no one knows how many people would never be hired in the first place.”

While Mr. Riley goes on to focus on Pelosi’s MW plan’s potentially negative impact on the Black community, I can only share my own “white privileged” experience with the topic. Frankly, if it weren’t for minimum wage jobs (e.g., bus boy, janitor, grounds keeper, factory worker) I don’t think I ever would have been able to pay for my college education, then, 3 years of law school. (Truth: Circa the 1970s, I lived on a $32.75 weekly pay check for at least two years.) Many other young folks & supposedly privileged folks of all kinds just needing a job to put food on the table are undoubtedly in the same boat today. So, if Mr. Riley & the CBO are correct in expecting a big drop in such life or career sustaining jobs should Pelosi get her way, we can chalk another step backwards thanks to her foolish progressive idea.

Davd Soul