END MINIMUM WAGE TO SAVE ECONOMY

by R J Shulman

SANTA FE, New Mexico (PTSD News Service) – This past week, Republicans in the Senate killed all discussion on a bill that would have increased in the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 with a filibuster.  The GOP claimed that such an increase would kill jobs.  The Democrats accused the GOP of being insincere about caring about jobs and have vowed that they will make the minimum wage a campaign issue in the 2014 mid-term election.

      But the problem here may be that Republicans were weak and didn’t go far enough.  If their theory about an increase in the minimum wage destroying jobs is correct, then a decrease or elimination of the minimum wage altogether should jump start the economy.  Following the GOP’s reasoning, here are the benefits of eliminating the minimum wage:    

         

         This would bring back millions of jobs lost when the minimum wage was raised up to the current $7.25.

2.      If wages for low skill jobs could fall to the market rate, it would cut down on illegal immigration because why would anyone risk their lives to enter the United States to clean toilets for $1.50 an hour when they can do that in their own country without the threat of being deported for speaking their native tongue on the job.

3.   

          It would teach young people how important it is to get a higher education so you don’t have to clean toilets for $1.50 an hour.  Wait - all the new jobs created by the elimination of the minimum wage will be low, so even a PhD might have to work for a buck fifty an hour.  But there is still an advantage.  Young people will not have to go to college and rack up insane student loans just to make $3,000 a year.

4. 

         If you only make $3,000 a year, you will qualify for a subsidy under the Affordable Care Act.  Wait – these people then would be in the hands of those Kenyan Muslim Death Panels, so scratch that one as a benefit of no minimum wage.

5.      American jobs will no longer be shipped off to China and Bangladesh because why would a company pay an ignorant foreign worker $1.50 an hour to make Nike sneakers when you can pay an ignorant American worker $1.50 to just do it.

6.      Since $1.50 per hour doesn’t give you what you need for basic food and shelter, it could give rise to a new more economically efficient work model.  How about the worker getting a place to live and three, OK, maybe two meals a day and all you have to do for this is to work 18 hours a day, and maybe there is a little cotton picking involved.  Oh, my stars, you say, that would be slavery.  So what’s your point?