Sunday Poll: Should St. Louis Gradually Raise The Minimum Wage To $15/hr By 2020?
Board bill 83 (not online yet) was introduced at the Board of Aldermen on Friday morning. If eventually signed into law, it would set up incremental raises to the minimum wage in the City of St. Louis. This seemed like a good topic for a reader poll.
Here’s the exact poll question:
A bill introduced Friday would raise the minimum wage in St. Louis to $10/hr, with annual increases of $1.25/hr until reaching $15/hr in 2020. I…
The answers range from “strongly support” to “strongly oppose.” The poll, located in the right sidebar, will close at 8pm tonight.
— Steve Patterson
Will the Board of Aldermen also introduce a bill to impose price controls? On rent? On groceries? On utilities? What you’re paid is only one half of the equation. What you (have to) spend is the other half of the equation, and is directly related to what employees are paid. When a bus ride cost a nickel and gas was going for 29.9 cents a gallon, $7.50 an hour was a great wage. Ultimately, all workers are paid what they are worth to their employers. It’s the Golden Rule – he who has the gold makes the rules!
Why not raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour–or $20.00 while they’re at it? Let’s do it tomorrow! We already hand out free/subsidized health care and cell phones to just about anyone who stands in line for either or both–some of whom chose to drop out of high school because it’s much easier to sit at home eating caramels in front of Let’s Make A Deal, or those who entered the full-time work force prematurely so they could afford a $250.00 a month note on that shiny new car, while either living at home with parents and/or while collecting government benefits for food, drugs and only God knows what else. My God, we don’t even require welfare recipients to submit to periodic drug tests! It’s a violation of their civil liberties! And we already pay sexually-active children to push out babies every 10 or 11 months out of wedlock! Where’s the incentive to live a moral life, to get married before starting a family, to stay in school to eventually become self-sufficient? Does morality even enter into the equation in America, in STL? Where’s the incentive to take advantage of existing government programs that assist with college tuition? There are several legitimate government programs out there that will cover tuition, even room/board for disadvantaged WHO WANT TO IMPROVE THEIR LOT IN LIFE! Where’s the incentive to learn a trade (or earn a college degree)? Maybe these recipients are afraid they’ll have to actually read a chapter in a textbook, or struggle for a few hours with a geometry theorem! It is so much easier to wash dishes for 8 hours a day, earn $15.00 an hour, drive the shiny new car (where’s the insurance?), then collect additional subsidies from the government (they’re out there just for the asking) to embellish a lazy lifestyle that will only worsen when the next democrat is elected and more benefits are passed along to nourish and perpetuate their political base. Mr. Slay and his democratic cronies showed their ass on Board Bill 83, and if it passes, I predict that St Louis will see a mass exodus of established businesses in the City–as it should! Think about it. If a McDonalds hires 5 workers per shift, pays 4 of them $15.00 an hour and the manager $25.00 an hour, how many hamburgers per hour have to be sold in order to recover just the costs of doing business, (not just meat and buns and mustard, but utilities, insurance, housekeeping, retirement of debt service on the building and property, etc) not including a profit?There’s got to be some incentive/profit for the shopkeeper (although democrats typically don’t support this theory. ( And even if the business CAN support $15.00/hr minimum wage, why pass a bill that will extend the wage EVERY SINGLE ENTRY LEVEL APPLICANT. To do so further destroys personal initiative, loyalty and job dedication in the workforce. Slay was raised in a family that knows the value of a buck, knows well that you don’t pay someone a wage that isn’t earned, that if costs escalate beyond a certain level, it will be time to padlock the doors. Even trolleys won’t save the City, because many of the business districts will soon resemble Martin Luther King Avenue as we all know it to be, and there won’t be a worthwhile reason to hop aboard.
The overlooked or ignored problem in making the minimum wage $15 per hour is that this will cause inflation to ripple all across the pay scale. People who are currently making $10 per hour will want $17. Those making $13 will want $20. Those at $15 will want $26, etc. Business’ will have to raise prices to come out even. In a couple of years the minimum wage earners will be in the exact same situation they are currently in. And the unemployed will be much much worse off.
Plus don’t forget that the owner has to pay Social Security/Medicare tax at 7.65%. At $8 per hour this is a $0.612 per hour tax on the owner. At $15 per hour this jumps to $1.1475. This is also true for workman’s comp.
Of course, if prices rise too much in the city, it’s only a small problem for me to do even more of my shopping out of StL. The poor people who depend on public transportation do not have that option.