The idea of raising the minimum wage always sounds like a good thing, right? Wrong. In fact, raising the minimum wage does tremendous damage to small businesses and the consumer. It's a subject that traditionally Republicans have been against, which is why I was so surprised when I heard that a bill raising the wage $2.00 was making it through our state government and was being signed into law by Governor Rendell.
Why on earth would our elected officials (and especially the Republicans) in the state House and Senate vote for such a thing? They clearly didn't listen to their constituents, and instead went ahead with their "pay raise" mentality. Perhaps they thought they would try and make up for their pay grab last summer by raising the wages of everyone else, instead of themselves. Whatever their reasoning, it worked. Now the minimum wage is on the incline in our state.
I guess I should be happy that it was a state decision and not a national one (as most things should be). But the passing of this pay raise only really does two things: help get our legislators re-elected, and make Governor Rendell look good.
Now, you may be saying: What's the problem with raising the minimum wage? Imagine a pond, sitting very still, very calm. Now toss a pebble labeled "$2.00 increase" into that pond and examine all of the ripples it creates. Firstly, it will hurt small businesses. While the raise is incremental over two years, and businesses with under 10 employees are put on a slower increment track, the fact is that these companies are going to have to pay there workers more than they had planned. Then you must look at the next ripple: if the businesses have to pay their employees more, they are going to have to charge more for their product. Which means that the price of goods will rise to cover the price of wages. So suddenly everyone will have to pay a little bit more for the stuff they normally buy, which is something that, as Americans, we always have trouble dealing with. And of course Unions will be demanding more money now as well, which is something they have always done when the minimum wage is raised.
The common argument for raising the wage is quite naive: how are people supposed to raise a family on $5.15/hr? They aren't. The minimum wage was never created to support a family, but rather it was to encourage growth and education. It was designed for students and people starting on the low end of the totem pole, hoping to work their way up. It is specifically not a "Living Wage" (which is a wage limit designed to support a standard of living). For those trying to make it a living wage, they are stretching a system that simply wasn't designed for that sort of thing.
As my brother says, it's like trying to park an SUV in a compact car space. People are still going to try to make it work, and it's only going to end in disaster.
