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900 W. Main St.,
PO Box 690 Grangeville, ID 83530
Phone: 208.983.1200 |
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Minimum wage? Why so minimum?
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| Guest Opinion - Wren |
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Reading Richard Stallings [Jan. 24 Free Press] blast at Bill Sali for his "silly" response to the current minimum wage bill pending causes me to issue the following question to Mr. Stallings and other supporters of that same proposal:
Working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year at $5.15/hr. does amount only to $10,300 a year, a tough amount for a family to live on to be sure!
But even working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks at $7.25 amounts to only $14,500 a year, which of course is only $1,208+/month, minus, of course, the tax and social security burden, in itself is pretty skimpy as all of us would agree!
So I ask, why don't you minimum wage advocates do those poor people a real favor, and demand a figure like $20/hr? That would give them 40 x 50 x $20 = $40,000/yr., minus the payroll burden of course, a much more reasonable figure to live on and enjoy the good things of life!
I submit that the response would be that such a figure could not be possible because a) The payers could not pay it, b) Many of the recipients would not be worth it! But hey! The very same argument applies if you raise wages even one thin dime over what a) A payer can afford to pay, or b) A recipient is worth! The amount has nothing to do with the principle of the thing. No one, not even Richard himself, would insist on paying an employee of his more than that employee is worth. Companies, large or small, cannot do that and exist. And Richard himself would not deny an hourly figure of even more that $7.25 to a valuable employee who has proved his worth, and becomes invaluable to his operation! We see all the time valuable employees being given hourly rates up and up until they reach figures like the $20/hr. A no brainer.
Interesting it is that the same day the minimum wage issue hit the front page of the Lewiston Tribune, a Northwest public radio news spot reported that the Idaho Falls and Pocatello areas were so short of cafe waitresses, that some restaurants were raiding others, with offers of higher pay, to fill spots they desperately need to operate. Seems their unemployment rate is down to 2 and 1/2 percent, and that many of the people still willing to work are totally unacceptable. So, concerned as he is about such people, l call on Mr. Stallings to offer these individuals work at the proposed $7.25 or higher per hour.
The obvious conclusion is that quality quickly drives wages up, and arbitrarily set wage minimums simply result in unemployment for those not able to produce at the wage level, hitting hard young people new to the employment arena, as well as those whose skills, work ethics, and attitudes do not measure up.
So, I call on Mr. Stallings and his supporters to employ only those types, and then offer them a pay scale equal to or in excess of the proposed new minimum wage!
And by the way, I wonder if the nearly 50 million aborted baby Americans during the past 33 years might have something to do with the shortage of quality labor today?
Jerry Wren is a resident of Cottonwood.
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