Obama has decided that wage disparities are really bad. Look at all of these companies with increased profits of billions of dollars? According to Barack Obama, we need to raise the minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $9.00/hour. It's only fair that the excessive corporate profits should be shared with the workers.
Who holds the jobs that earn minimum wage? Most minimum wage earners are high school and college students working to earn money for college. Many of them are working in retail and fast-food jobs. The rest are unskilled workers that are career minimum wage earners, and many of them also work in the retail and fast-food industries. Interestingly, many of these workers are making less money than they did before Obamacare took effect. Now their employers are required to buy them health insurance unless they work less than 30 hours/week, so their hours have been cut back by 25%. I guess this increase in minimum wage will almost get them back up to the same money they earned at 40 hours/week before.
Why do all these folks work in retail and fast-food today? When I was in high school and college, I had jobs at four different manufacturing companies. I worked in a shoe factory, a freezer factory, a truck axle factory, and a cotton gin factory. The problem today is that the minimum wage has risen pretty high, and more than ever, we are competing with low cost, third world countries all over the planet. All of the manufacturing jobs that require little or no skill are moving to these low cost countries. As the minimum wage rises, the folks in these countries must cheer the influx of new jobs moving there from America. Everyone in this country whose job skills are worth less than minimum wage will be permanently unemployed.
Of course, the fast-food jobs can't move overseas. That means we will see inflation in these sectors. Who will pay the higher wages? Is it the rich, capitalist small business owner? No. It is you and me that pay the higher prices.
What happens in the retail sector? People are replaced by a website and an automated warehouse.
Obama's answer to every problem is another MessAPolitico. In this case the problem is the Obamacare debacle. He hopes that raising the minimum wage will make you forget that MessAPolitico. Now Obama is making a play to the uninformed voters out there, and this play lacks substance. Or maybe it does have substance, and it is all negative.
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