Minimum wage helps to protect working class from predators

Prager U. begins with a Red Herring: "It makes sense that the lowest
skilled workers get paid the lowest wages, while those with more
skills get paid more, right? But what happens when the government
increases the minimum wage, requiring businesses to pay more for
workers? Business owners are often forced to
reduce staff to offset the added expense. Which employees are most at risk
of losing their jobs?"
This sort of thinking assumes that there are some jobs that require
more skill and some jobs that are more important than others.
But that has nothing to do with how much a worker is worth. Every
person is worth enough of an income to afford to live in their
community. Any necessary job in a society is worth at least a living
wage. Of course the cost of that living wage is always passed on to
those using that service. A hamburger costing $2.40 today, might cost
$2.70 if wages went to $15 per hour. But the employer is not going to
lay off workers if he intends to continue doing business and making
his own living. If Prager's logic were true, there would be no fast
food businesses today. Gone are the 19 cent hamburgers, but they did
not put the employees out of work. The owners of the fast food joints
simply raised their prices. Sure, they whined about having to lay off
workers, but that was bogus.
If a job is important enough to be done by hired labor, then that
labor deserves to be paid a dignified wage.
Of course the employers are always looking for ways of cutting down
labor in order to pocket more profit. They did away with the gas pump
attendants in the state of Washington, turning the customers into semi
employees, pumping their own gas as free labor. But in Oregon they
still have gas pump attendants, and the price of gas is not
significantly higher than in Washington. The nominee for secretary of
labor advocates the use of robots in place of fast food workers. As
CEO of Carl Juniors Hamburgers, he rails at having to pay an employee
who takes time out to be sick, pregnant or to care for an ill parent
or child.
This is the mentality of a person who worships wealth over human
welfare. And so long as we allow these billionaires to dictate how we
live our lives, we will continue to lick their boots and thank them
for the few pennies they drop at our feet.

Carl Jarvis