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Op-Ed: Did Biden and the Democrats Fail Economics 101? Better to be Employed at $8, Than Unemployed at $15

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If a small business has to pay double its government mandated payroll tax, they’ll either not hire a worker, operate with less, raise their prices, or go out of business. All negative outcomes. Photo credit ShutterStock.com, licensed.

DELRAY BEACH, FL – Can you imagine during the height of a pandemic, with many small businesses on the brink of going out of business, Biden and the Democrats propose implementing a job killing minimum wage of $15 per hour? That’s like putting a dagger through the heart of many struggling small businesses and hastening the demise of those small businesses who are trying to hang on and survive.

The minimum wage should be determined by the free market system not by government mandate. If a business wants to pay $15, $20, $25 or more per hour, that is their business, but when the government wants to tell a business it must pay a certain amount as a minimum wage, it is government overreach.

To show what a bad decision it is for Biden and the Democrats to mandate a $15 minimum wage is the fact that socialist Bernie Sanders thinks it is a great idea, then you know it is exactly the opposite. Both Biden and Sanders have been professional politicians all their working lives, and have no clue as to how a private business operates. What they are doing is pandering emotionally to the masses, most of whom don’t work for the minimum wage, but have false empathy for those who do.

The fact that Biden and the Democrats claim that a person making, let’s say, $8.00 per hour can’t raise a family on that wage has some validity and sounds rational to many, but most people who work for the minimum wage are teenagers working part-time, inexperienced workers just starting out in their working careers, and senior citizens trying to supplement their retirement. Very few, if any, try to raise a family making the minimum wage. That’s the big lie being put forth by the advocates of the government raising the minimum wage.

We all must remember that a person doesn’t get paid by the hour on a job, they get paid for the value they bring on the job. If a small business has to pay double its government mandated payroll tax, they’ll either not hire a worker, operate with less, raise their prices, or go out of business. All negative outcomes.

Many of us, including myself, have worked at a job in our youth that paid the minimum wage (in my case, I worked at a job for $1.00 per hour) and was glad to have a job for extra spending money and by getting the experience of working and getting paid. As I progressed in age, knowledge, and experience, I made much more than the minimum wage, many times over, and I treasured the time I spent working for such a low pay in my formative years.

If our youth today can’t find a job because a business can’t afford to pay an employee a $15 minimum wage, what a waste for that young person not being able to gain practical experience and responsibility at working at a job. What is a youth to do if he can’t utilize his spare time productively working at a job? Might he not use his spare time getting into trouble? As I’ve said before, is it better to be employed at $8 per hour than to be unemployed at $15 per hour?

The politicians and bureaucrats are mainly people that never had to hire or fire an employee, and never had to meet a payroll, and never had to make a profit to survive. They sit in their “ivory tower” and pass laws that make no economic sense because they can’t relate to a small businessman and the problems he/she has to face.

Let the free market work by letting the business determine what they can afford to pay their employees. If they can’t find someone to work at the pay they want to pay, they’ll have to live without an employee or they’ll have to raise the pay rate to attract a needed employee.

So, remember every time the government seems to get involved in anything (except the military) they generally screw it up. So it is with the mandated minimum wage. If you still favor doing that, I’d suggest you go back and take that class of Economics 101 you missed earlier.

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