I’ve read any number of arguments against raising the minimum wage. Some are good and some are not — but this one takes the cake (via memeorandum):
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) released the following statement today regarding his vote against, H.R. 2, the Minimum Wage Act:
“This bill is unfair to workers and, in many cases, it will be harmful to the very people it is supposedly designed to help. Most workers will experience a minimum-wage penalty rather than a minimum-wage benefit because of this bill. This bill has far more to do with increasing the political capital of politicians in Washington than increasing real wages of low-income families,” Dr. Coburn said.
From there, I expected to read about the possibility of net job-loss, as businesses compress their numbers of minimum-wage workers to meet the bottom line. But no — it seems that “real wages” means something entirely different here:
In Oklahoma, low-wage workers are eligible for up to $25,726 in assistance in areas such as child care, housing assistance and food stamps. Under the minimum wage increase approved by Congress, these low-wage workers would find themselves eligible for benefits worth $4,600 less than they would under the current minimum wage. Yet, their newly increased wage would only provide an increase of $4,368 per year, resulting in a net income loss of $232 per year.
Senator Coburn evidently thinks that government support (a.k.a. entitlement programs) equates to “real wages”.
Wow. Is he really arguing that it would be better for these folks to continue on public assistance? I must be missing something. Maybe it’s in the next paragraph:
“Minimum wage was never intended to be the sole income of a family and numerous studies show that few minimum wage earners are the sole income earners in their household,” Dr. Coburn said, noting that since 1998, the number of workers earning minimum wage has precipitously declined from more than 4 million to less than 1.9 million and that 85 percent of low-wage workers are teens living at home with their parents, adults living alone or dual-earner married couples.
Oops. No help there, since according to this, that the vast majority of those earning minimum wage wouldn’t actually be eligible for most of those very entitlements.
Polimom assumes (a dangerous thing to do, I know) this Senator realizes that teens living at home don’t need housing assistance, anymore than adults living alone need child care… which means that based on his own examples, increasing the minimum wage would put real $ into the market.
Do you suppose that’s the same market to which he refers in his conclusion?
“Free markets, and the American ideals of entrepreneurship and hard work, are far better equipped at setting and raising wages than politicians in Washington. Yet, when government decides to step in, it should be at the state and local level. States across America are already addressing this issue. American families deserve an economy in which they can prosper, not more counterfeit compassion from Washington,” Dr. Coburn said.
What a bizarre bit of idiocy. His entire statement, while supposedly defining why he voted against the minimum wage increase, demonstrates that he doesn’t understand it.