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$15 Minimum Wage: Women, Blacks Hurt Most
Townhall.com ^ | June 4, 2015 | Larry Elder

Posted on 06/04/2015 5:03:26 AM PDT by Kaslin

Fourteen to one, in favor.

That was the Los Angeles City Council vote to raise, over the next five years, the city's minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15. Of course, as Investor's Business Daily tells us, the $15 per hour really is closer to $20.

How does it get to $20?

Investor's Business Daily says: "Once all the nonwage costs are added, including payroll taxes, paid sick leave and the big one -- ObamaCare's employer mandate -- minimum compensation for a full-time worker could rise as high as $19.28 an hour by 2020, an IBD analysis finds. That would amount to a jump of $10.67, or 124 percent, since June 2014."

How cynical is the push for higher minimum wage?

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, traveled from state to state, collecting signatures to place minimum wage increase initiatives on ballots. To pull this off, the organization needed to hire lots of workers. In 1995, ACORN came to California to gather signatures for a higher minimum wage. But ACORN sued the state, seeking to exempt itself from California's minimum wage and overtime laws. Its brief read, "The more ACORN must pay each individual outreach worker -- either because of minimum wage or overtime requirements -- the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire."

Not cynical enough?

Union leaders, who successfully lobbied for LA's $15-an-hour minimum wage, then asked for an exemption for any firms using union labor! Repeat, the very same union leaders who successfully lobbied for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, then wanted an exemption for businesses that employ union labor and negotiate their wages under collective bargaining. Union bosses want the fear of a $15 minimum wage hike to push companies into unionizing their labor forces.

This push for higher minimum wage will mostly hurt women -- a constituency that the left claims to care so much about. According to the National Women's Law Center, women are at least half of the minimum-wage workers in all 50 states. In New Hampshire, Arkansas, Maine and Pennsylvania, 70 percent of the minimum wage workers are female.

Before the ever-increasing minimum wage laws took effect, a black teenager was slightly more likely to be employed than a white teenager. Economist Walter Williams writes: "In the 1940s and 1950s ... teenage unemployment among blacks was slightly lower than among whites, and black teens were more active in the labor force as well. All of my classmates, friends, and acquaintances who wanted to work found jobs of one sort or another."

Minimum wage and other New Deal policies, according to CATO's Jim Powell, cost jobs: "The flagship of the New Deal was the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed in June 1933. It authorized the president to issue executive orders establishing some 700 industrial cartels, which restricted output and forced wages and prices above market levels. The minimum wage regulations made it illegal for employers to hire people who weren't worth the minimum because they lacked skills. As a result, some 500,000 blacks, particularly in the South, were estimated to have lost their jobs."

Today's push for a higher minimum wage occurs as the supposed "pay gap" between male and female millennials now approaches extinction. Pew Research Center says: "(T)oday's young women are the first in modern history to start their work lives at near parity with men. In 2012, among workers ages 25 to 34, women's hourly earnings were 93 percent those of men. ... And women in the younger age cohort were significantly more likely than their male counterparts to have completed a bachelor's degree ?- 38 percent versus 31 percent in 2013."

Two years ago, Elissa Shevinsky, described as a "social justice warrior," complained about "sexism" in high-tech industries. She argued for policies to encourage more women in tech. But Shevinsky later had an epiphany: "I think the more important meaning is to actively choose a path that's yours -- for women to create their own companies and their own infrastructures, to actively seek out people and create places that are a fit for them. Women are martyring themselves trying to change the existing culture, and it's miserable for everyone."

In other words, stop acting like victicrats -- and take control. Shevinsky now says, "Complaining can be effective but also authoritarian, and often unpleasant for everyone involved. Building something new can be even more impactful, and I believe it's a healthier approach."

Former Sony Pictures co-chief Amy Pascal gives equally blunt advice about knowing and getting what you're worth. After the Sony cyberattack revealed that the studio head paid star Jennifer Lawrence less money than her less-popular male costars, Pascal offered this defense: "Here's the problem. I run a business. People want to work for less money; I'll pay them less money. I don't call them up and say, 'Can I give you some more?' Because that's not what you do when you run a business. The truth is, what women have to do is not work for less money. They have to walk away. People shouldn't be so grateful for jobs. ... People should know what they're worth."

Any questions?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: aliens; amnesty; blackcommunity; border; california; illegalaliens; illegalimmigration; immigration; kalifornia; minimumwage; women
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1 posted on 06/04/2015 5:03:27 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

“Any questions?”

Just one.

Why is the los angeles city council stupid?


2 posted on 06/04/2015 5:08:13 AM PDT by lowbridge
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To: Kaslin

Actually youths hurt most. Before the minimum wage teenage unemployment was virtually nonexistent. If you wanted a job, you could find one. The foot on the ladder of success was more important than the pay. Bring back freedom.


3 posted on 06/04/2015 5:10:06 AM PDT by all the best
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To: Kaslin

This minimum wage business is going to lead to bigger and more powerful criminal gangs.


4 posted on 06/04/2015 5:12:01 AM PDT by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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To: Kaslin

A simple sandwich-and-a-drink lunch has gone from about $5 to about $10 in the last six years where I live.

That’s an average inflation rate of about 12%.


5 posted on 06/04/2015 5:14:19 AM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP for A Slower Handbasket)
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To: Kaslin

Well, of course. All you have to do is go onto You Tube and search for Milton Friedman interviews and in many of those videos he makes the point that minimum wage laws are the most racist, anti-black laws currently on the books because they’ve kept many blacks out of the job market over the years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-BGi4NIFww


6 posted on 06/04/2015 5:16:32 AM PDT by OttawaFreeper ("Keeping your stick down used to be a commandment, but not anymore" Harry Sinden, 1988)
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To: Kaslin
There wouldn't be a cry for absurd minimum wages if wages for competent long-duration workers with skills had kept pace with the cost of living. That would happen if supply and demand still existed. With invaders undermining the US citizen for jobs in the US and jobs being sent overseas for the cheap labor benefits, US workers have suffered.

It doesn't make sense that those competent, loyal long-term trained workers (two years or more) aren't making at least $12 an hour with the chance for at least 35 hours a week of work. That would be a living wage without government subsidies.

It shouldn't have to be a minimum age. In a functioning economy, it's what workers would be paid. Without that, people are fed up and are going to demand the gov do something.

7 posted on 06/04/2015 5:17:47 AM PDT by grania
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To: equaviator

Yep, and businesses will relocate to other places in droves.

This will cause a cesspool city to become even worse.


8 posted on 06/04/2015 5:20:30 AM PDT by FreedomStar3028 (Somebody has to step forward and do what is right because it is right, otherwise no one will follow.)
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To: Kaslin

“Investor’s Business Daily tells us, the $15 per hour really is closer to $20.”

More like $25 when you add matching SS, workman’s comp,
unemployment and O’tardcare. Even more if you can afford to
offer paid vacation and sick leave. All this does is open
the doors to more wetbacks in the work force. Wetbacks don’t
need no a SS card and they are exempt from O’tardcare.

$20 minimum wage = more wetbacks but then again isn’t 10%
of mexicos population in California already.


9 posted on 06/04/2015 5:23:59 AM PDT by Slambat
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To: Kaslin
As a fan of states right what LA does with minimum wage is not my concern.

Adjusted for inflation $15.00 would be equivalent to $2.00 in 1965. High, but not earth shattering.

10 posted on 06/04/2015 5:24:57 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: lowbridge

“Why is the los angeles city council stupid?”

They are a direct reflection of the people they represent.
Stupid people elect stupid politicians.


11 posted on 06/04/2015 5:25:47 AM PDT by Slambat
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To: central_va

“Adjusted for inflation $15.00 would be equivalent to $2.00 in 1965. High, but not earth shattering.”

Good, you might understand my theory on all of this. I think
the minimum wage does two things. One, it causes the effect
of inflation to start at the bottom of the economy along
with at the top. Two, it’s a boost in tax revenue for the
government. The bad thing is it forces a huge monetary
sacrifice on business and the middle class by raising the
cost of business while causing a lull in revenue and a
loss of retirement and savings due to a weaker dollar.


12 posted on 06/04/2015 5:40:56 AM PDT by Slambat
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To: Slambat

If we had a proper country with very restrictive immigration the need for a minimum wage would be diminished. But open borders and no floor on wages would turn the US into Brazil even faster than we are heading there now.


13 posted on 06/04/2015 5:52:18 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Kaslin

It only makes sense if you understand liberals don’t want blacks serving them coffee or making them sandwiches.


14 posted on 06/04/2015 5:54:27 AM PDT by Raycpa
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To: Kaslin

It is good for Democrats to get more people off the employment rolls and onto the welfare rolls. That gains Democrat voters. If the Democrats openly required and enforced all employers firing all employees who are under age 25 and all Negro employes, almost all of the new unemployeds who are not Democrats would instantly convert to Democrat voters because that’s how they insure their paychecks in their new employment as welfare bums.


15 posted on 06/04/2015 5:55:21 AM PDT by arthurus (It's true!)
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To: Kaslin

Middle/upper class white kids will get that summer job. They will get the job flipping burgers part time. Pumping gas, stocking shelves, and making beds. Inner city black/brown kids with zero experience are just going to have to suck hind tit.

Minimum wage laws are RACIST in their disparate results.


16 posted on 06/04/2015 5:59:18 AM PDT by Drango (A liberal's compassion is limited only by the size of someone else's wallet.)
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To: Drango

“Middle/upper class white kids will get that summer job. They will get the job flipping burgers part time. Pumping gas, stocking shelves, and making beds. Inner city black/brown kids with zero experience are just going to have to suck hind tit.”

Probably not. Have they ever? Don’t forget that there are laws and quotas to make sure they get the lion’s share of those jobs. Dems most likely have more of those mandates waiting in the wings with stupid RINOS to help pass them. Otherwise, most of those jobs would be given to middle-aged or healthy seniors because they’re dependable and still have some work ethic. You can bet your bottom dollar Democrats aren’t going to let that happen!


17 posted on 06/04/2015 6:13:51 AM PDT by Aleya2Fairlie
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To: lowbridge

Think for a minute...it will come to you.


18 posted on 06/04/2015 6:16:40 AM PDT by gogeo (If you are Tea Party, the eGOP does not want you.)
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To: central_va
"Adjusted for inflation $15.00 would be equivalent to $2.00 in 1965. High, but not earth shattering."

Adjusted for inflation, $15 is still an all-time high. Meanwhile, we're importing millions of unskilled workers from abroad, so there is effectively an infinite supply, or at least a supply that dwarfs demand. A $15 national minimum wage is truly a prescription for disaster. (As we will see demonstrated in the locales that are instituting it. There were far fewer technological options available to replace low skilled labor in 1965.)


19 posted on 06/04/2015 6:28:58 AM PDT by Sooth2222 ("In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." - Joseph de Maistre, 1753-1821)
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To: Kaslin
$15 Minimum Wage: Women, Blacks Hurt Most


20 posted on 06/04/2015 6:35:30 AM PDT by BerniesFriend (Sarah Palin-"Lord knows she's attractive" says bitter Andrea Mitchell and the rest of the MSM)
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