Posted on 01/04/2014 5:20:41 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Speaking on Fox News recently, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer proposed what, to many, might have sounded like a rather novel compromise on the minimum wage. His idea? We should have two of them, a higher minimum for "breadwinners," and a lower minimum for everybody else.
Here was Krauthammer's thinking, paraphrased. It might be hard to feed a whole household on $7.25 an hour. But raising the minimum is most likely to hurt teenagers and minorities who rely on low-paid, entry-level jobs to get a foothold in the working world. So how do you lend a hand to hard-pressed families without penalizing the young? Force employers to pay the "breadwinners" more, and everybody else less.
He called his two-tiered solution "a reasonable answer that Republicans and conservatives could offer."
Already, Krauthammer has gotten a bit of pushback. "Proponents and skeptics of a higher minimum wage can agree that Krauthammer is wrong about this," Slate's Matt Yglesias quipped on Twitter. The Washington Examiner's Philip Klein argued that figuring out who qualified as a "breadwinner" and making sure employers paid them appropriately would be a regulatory headache. But more importantly, he says:
...the economic effects would be most detrimental for those Krauthammer's proposal is intended to help. Under Krauthammer's idea, businesses who want to avoid paying the higher minimum wage on breadwinners have an easy solution: Shift toward hiring more teenagers or other nonbreadwinners.
Klein is right that that whole "breadwinner" concept would probably be more trouble than it would be worth. But what if we tweaked the idea just a little bit, and based the minimum wage on something more straightforward, like a worker's age?
We wouldn't be the first country to try it....
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
When you don’t have an intelligent response, ad hominem attacks are cheap and plentiful—Proverbs
Time for some fresh air!!
Should Your Minimum Wage Depend on Your Age?
NO
Anyone working a minimum wage job and trying to support a family shouldn’t have a family to begin with.
We shouldn’t have a minimum wage anyway. It should be up to the employer. There’s a large majority of minimum wage workers that don’t deserve what they’re getting.
Exactly right. IBM recently caught some flack for specifying in job postings that they wanted new college graduates. They had just laid off people in those same jobs so it's hard to see this as anything other than an effort to replace older, better qualified workers with low paid, low knowledge workers.
I don’t get how anyone would expect to live off of 40 hrs of min wage to begin with. If the only option I had right now was going back to McD, I’d work there 40 hrs, and work another 40 at Burger King. Its humanly possible and I know this for a fact. This time last year I was working my regular week on/off 84 hour weeks, and also covering for a friend on maternity leave, on the opposite weeks.
That would get me $1280 every 2 weeks. I wouldn’t even have to move if I cut phone and tv. Geico would be rough every 6 months, but the point is I could do it. And I sure as hell would before I’d ever take a dime of welfare money.
The stats show that younger workers have been the most affected by obozo’s economy...by far the young have the highest unemployment rates...ironic given their voting habits.
Amen.
As I commented the other day when this first showed up, Kraut is shilling for Hillary and her “Third Way” campaign.
Dems want $15/hr min wage, repubs say leave it where it is.
Well here we have a “Third Way”.
“Age adjusting only means that older people won’t get hired in minimum wage jobs.”
Bingo. More special rules means SOMEBODY is gonna get screwed.
No, I noticed old people work much harder and are for the most part more responsible employees.
Since when does America operate like this?
Disgusting.
When I worked and lived at home as a teenager...I gave part of my pay to my mom and dad...It didn’t hurt me and it helped them. Of course, I didn’t buy $100 sneakers either.
I agree a fail from the Hammer, but I would venture to say there have been more non-breadwinners fired or released from jobs than breadwinners.
Simply for the reason that the breadwinner “needs” the job more. Same misbegotten philosophy. I’ve seen it happen.
I’ve seen that for sure. Someone might really suck and should be replaced, but they “have young kids” or a “sick wife” and no one wants to pull the trigger. Happens all the time.
Old people work harder? I don’t see that at all. In fact, just the opposite. Young people in these jobs WANT to work. The older folks just go to work.
>>yeah, let’s go ahead with more laws about stuff. It surely will help.
I think you people misunderstood my comment. I was just pointing out that age-adjusting the minimum wage is the epitome of “to each according to his needs” which is the basis of communism.
I was trying to make the point that age-adjusting the minimum wage is a Marxist idea!!
Subtlety does not work on FR. :-(
kinda like a warning of some brilliant Dem concept...just like Obamacare was a brilliant Dem concept...
Charlie's underlying theme to government...stay out of private business.
Nice to see the work ethic isn’t dead, but I seriously doubt many at entry level will ever again get even close to 30 hours, let alone 40, thanks to obamacare.
“Subtlety does not work on FR. :-(”
Actually, yes. You should listen to the audio book, “Public opinion” by Walter Lippmann. (It’s free.) https://librivox.org/public-opinion-by-walter-lippmann/
It explains why people so often misunderstand what you’re saying.
However, I did understand and agree with your comment. But age adjusting also has the effect of hurting older employees who will not be hired because they cost more. Minimum wage jobs generally don’t require much skill so age is not a good thing in seeking that sort of employment.
The people I work with who share my work ethic seem to be the foreigners. They’re the ones I compete for the overtime with. They see it as a gift like I do.
You’re right about entry level, and its a shame. I remember being offered overtime at McD when they were desperate, and I always said yes. This must have been in the mid 90’s.
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