But for reasons different from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘ (D, NY). Or it would be, if Ocasio-Cortez hadn’t slept through so many of her economics classes.
[Congresswoman] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D, NY] called the debate over raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour “utterly embarrassing” and reiterated her push for the Biden administration to override the Senate parliamentarian and include a pay floor increase in the Democrats’ coronavirus relief package.
It is embarrassing that a Boston University cum laude BA in economics could have so little understanding of basic economics. It is embarrassing, too, that so many grown adults alongside her in Congress could have so little understanding of basic economics.
It is well-known that the more something costs, the less of it that will be bought or otherwise acquired—or even sought after. Of course, that applies to labor as well as to the goods and services that labor produces.
It is well-known that if the output of labor isn’t worth the cost, the laborer won’t be hired in the first place.
It is well-known that minimum wage jobs—the jobs allegedly targeted by the Progressive-Democrats’ drive for $15/hr—are low/no skill jobs.
It is well-known that the primary workers in those low-no skill jobs are teenagers trying to earn some summer money for a number of reasons, earning some college money; existing college students looking to earn money for their current expenses; first-time workers looking to gain work experience and resume material; single parents looking to plus up their family’s income; two-parent families with one or both parents looking to plus up their family’s savings. Very few of these minimum wage jobs are the sole job held by the worker.
From that, it should be easy to understand that the ones who will be hurt the most by a mandated minimum wage increase will be precisely those folks, as they’re the ones who will be priced out of their jobs, and the small businesses who can’t afford to pay that much in wages.
It’s also lost on the Progressive-Democrats, or they simply don’t care, that the ones most hurt by such a move are minority low-skill workers and the minority-owned or -operated small businesses that can’t afford the labor cost.
We even have empirical evidence of the failure of such a minimum wage: in Seattle, where employment has fallen off in the aftermath of that city’s mandated wage increase.
Yet the Progressive-Democrats push on, with their eyes wide shut.