My cousin's kid is a single mother, makes $12 an hour working in a warehouse, and could no longer afford her apartment and had to move in with her mother.
The disparity of wealth in this country is pretty bad, and becomes really obvious when you have poor family living in a below average state.
The liberal argument is that putting more money in the hands of poor people would stimulate the economy, because they would spend it.
I am going to take a position slightly different than my normal libertarian conservative view.
My thinking that a gradual increase might be beneficial, such as a 25 or 50 cent increase per year. This would be useful even just as an experiment, to see if the negative consequences outweigh the beneficial ones.
I am looking at this from a moral perspective. If you ask someone to work for less than a living wage, which I have done, not only does this seem like slavery, but someone else has to supplement that person's living. It might be a family member, or food stamps (which Walmart suggested to their employees that they apply for), or low income housing. Somebody is paying the bill somewhere.
I see the opposite side of the argument. Pay people too much and they have no incentive to better themselves.
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