Boosting minimum wage would kill jobs.

July 24, 2012

By John Seiler

Even an atomic bomb doesn’t devastate a city as much as the minimum wage. After all, Hiroshima and Nagasaki recovered and today are thriving cities.

The minimum wage destroys the ability of low-wage workers, especially young people and minorities, to get that crucial first job; or a job to tide them over during tough times. Almost no one stays at a minimum wage. People get promotions.

And the advertised “minimum wage” — currently $7.25 at the federal level and $8 in California — isn’t the only cost to employers, who also pay the “employer’s” portion of the Social Security (FICA) and Medicare taxes, currently 7.65 percent of the wage; or $0.55 added to the federal minimum wage. If Obamacare is imposed next year, the cost will go even higher.

Now, California’s own liberal Democratic Rep. George Miller wants to boost the fedearl minimum wage by $2.55 an hour over three years, to $9.80 an hour. If that happens, it would strike during the middle of an economy going sour, meaning even more millions of Americans would be standing in unemployment lines.

Worse, he wants to index the minimum wage to inflation. That would guarantee massive unemployment for decades. One of the reasons the 1980s were so prosperous was that President Reagan refused to increase the minimum wage at all. So as prosperity and inflation took effect, the minimum wage effectively declined in value. That meant more young kids starting out could get jobs, instead of standing in unemployment lines or staying at home bugging their parents.

Especially hurt by the minimum wage are minorities, as I detailed back in a long article in April. Check that one out if you want the numbers and background.