While the Bush administration continues to castrate the Constitution, its also sneaking in a minimum wage increase that will raise it from 5.15 currently to 7.25 in 2009. Not only is he securing his legacy as an enemy of the small business owner, but his policy will bleed into the first quarter of the following presidency. Raising the minimum wage is so harmful to the economy and business owners, its a wonder that no president has ever heeded the words of economists from the past and present. The minimum wage is the biggest undocumented cause of unemployment in America. Its undocumented because the man who can’t get a job because he is willing to work for less than the minimum wage never becomes a statistic at all.
The minimum wage further strips power away from private business owners by disallowing them to pay employees what they’re actually worth. But since a market value must still be used when hiring prospective employees, it will become increasingly harder for employers to hire unskilled workers at the minimum wage and still stay above water. The only companies that will be able to absorb the two dollar hike are bigger companies like Wal-Mart and Target. Mom and pop are once again S.O.L. Employers will begin hiring less people rather than pay more money to the same amount of people. One worker will be forced to do the job of two or three, or else be fired in lieu of someone who will.
A two dollar increase is huge when you look at the effects it will have on certain businesses. Small gas station owners, for example, will have a difficult time paying employees while also trying to keep up with the skyrocketing prices of fuel resources. The minimum wage is, as has been said time and time again, a socialist idea. Though in works in reverse of a wage cap, it still has the same effect. It also forces employers to pay people more than their market value. Some businesses are not hurting for applicants, while some have to hire whoever they can.
Bush is doing his damnedest to make sure the economy is strangled by his policies, just like he’s done with every other facet of human life.
John C. Keyser
May 29,2007