Why Not a $15 Minimum Wage?

There is a movement afoot to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Say you are one of those working for $8 per hour right now and struggling to make ends meet. So many people obviously have so much more than you do. They seem even to have money to spare, and you are always behind. Why shouldn’t you support a change in the law that enables you to be treated more equally?
And for that matter, what is magical about even $15 per hour? You aren’t asking to live in a mansion, only a decent little house. In Cape May County that would cost, perhaps,  $150,000. On a monthly basis, the house payments, taxes, utilities and maintenance would run you, say $1,700 per month, or $400 a week. If you and your spouse both work 40 hours per week, how much do you need to bring home to afford that $400? The rule of thumb is, housing should cost around 30 percent of your income; so that means that you should be bringing home around $1,300 between the two of you each week, or $650 each. To do that after payroll deductions, you each need around $800 each, or $20 per hour.
Even this assumes you are a two-income family, each working full-time. If one is the main, or sole, breadwinner, $20 won’t be enough. So why not push the politicians to mandate a $15 per hour wage minimum, as step one, and more later on? If the politicians agree to your request and pass such a law, they either don’t understand our economic system versus socialism, or are pretending not to understand, or they are undermining it.
Socialism is not the system which makes us prosperous. Our system pays out wages based upon what the employer can receive for the end product. If he or she is forced to pay an amount above what is economically viable, he or she is forced into seeking alternatives in order to get costs in line. Former Herald general manager, Gary Rudy, was once the manager of Murphy’s in Wildwood and was faced with this challenge. A minimum wage increase was instituted, which forced him to fire one half of the clerks behind the counters. The half that did not get fired made out well, but it was bad for half of them.
Let’s go to the fast-food ordering counter. At a certain price, it makes sense to have people taking the orders of the customers, but the higher the cost, the more alternatives are sought. My wife, Patricia, and I were in a McDonalds while on recent travels and were greeted by a bank of computer terminals for ordering our meals.  This creates more higher paying jobs in some far-away city to create computer terminals but costs the clerks behind the counter their employment. Another cost of artificial wage levels is the destruction of entry-level employment in towns across America.
America was built on free enterprise, where people pay for something according to its value, not according to government interference. Such abuse of power may serve the politicians who desire to try to please the people, but it has ended in disaster everywhere it has been tried. In socialism, the government makes the economic decisions, without understanding the underlying costs. In that system, you could get your $15, or $20, or more per hour, until the whole house of cards comes crashing down. One only needs to look at Russia, China, and Cuba for examples. Or how about Venezuela? They sit on one of the world’s largest deposits of oil, and despite all that extraordinary wealth, they are unable to keep food on the grocery shelves.
In summary, don’t undermine the system which has made America an economic powerhouse. Instead, we need to work to become ever-better educated, as the means to improving our lot in life. 
Art Hall
From the Bible:  The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.  2 Chronicles 16:9