A "Living Wage"

As soon as I turned sixteen, I got my first job working for a grocery store chain. I started out bagging groceries and worked through nearly every department as I graduated from high school and then put myself through college, working for the same company as a cashier. It was a great job for a student--flexible hours, relatively low stress, on-the-job training, etc. It also provided the opportunity for a shy young girl to learn to look people in the eye, provide customer service, problem solve, explore my talents and grow within the business. Nearly every co-worker I had was either single and providing for themselves or were working there to supply a needed second income for their family. We all knew that if you wanted to provide for an entire family, you would need to pursue a management track and become a career employee of the company. There were plenty of opportunities to do so if you were willing to work hard, learn the business and commit to the company. By the time I graduated from college, I had topped out on the pay scale and was ready to move on to a new career. After ten years of working at the grocery store, they asked me to stay and become a manager. They made much better money but worked unusual and sometimes very long hours. I had worked there long enough to know that was not a lifestyle I wanted. I moved on, but the lessons I learned in those years are invaluable and I still use them today.

As I listen to the current fad of minimum wage earners demanding a "living wage" I am both angered by their insolence and disheartened by their ignorance. Fault a pathetic public education system if you like, but their embarrassing ignorance of a market driven economy is appalling. Even more disturbing is to see them exploited by unions and politicians alike who use them as convenient tools to further their own agendas, giving no real thought to either the causes of their situation or viable solutions thereto. Let there be no doubt that this movement is politically motivated and union driven. The politicians gain political favor by promising the impossible and hope for lifelong voters trapped in a plight that will require the perpetual need for governmental saviors. The unions take no back seat as they work hand in glove with politicians using the "living wage" as a back door method to unionize businesses where they have failed before, resulting in increased union dues, membership and big pay raises for union bosses.

Wage and price controls have been epic failures every time they have been tried. The more the government gets involved, the more they mess things up. Their endless tinkering has done nothing to change the value of minimum wage jobs in the marketplace.  Minimum wage laws have served only to create inflation. Those who benefit from a mandatory, across-the-board increase in minimum wage will receive a temporary income boost. In the long term, those raises are wiped out by increased costs to their employers who in turn pass the cost on to consumers. The actual value of that combo meal hasn't changed, the dollar has simply become worth less and the corresponding price increases negate any wage gains. In fact, the very people demanding a living wage will likely find themselves unemployed and unemployable if it becomes law. They will have priced themselves out of the marketplace resulting in more people permanently dependent on government handouts.

This is where the appalling lack of a basic understanding of a market economy is so agonizingly painful to observe. The marketplace is not partisan in any way. It simply responds to the market forces of supply and demand. As much as food nazis dislike it, there will always be a market for fast food...unless "living wage" zealots are successful. The market has essentially placed a fixed value on the type of food purchased at fast food joints. It's of a reasonable quality for those who purchase it, at a price they are willing to pay. Forcing restaurant owners to pay more for the workers who send it out the doors will only succeed in either pricing themselves out of the marketplace or driving up the price, leading to inflation, which then negates the "living wage".

Entry level jobs that pay minimum wage were never created to allow someone to provide for their family. They were created to meet a need in the marketplace. They were a way to get kids and students into the workplace and provide inexpensive labor for jobs that require little more than a pulse and a sixth grade education. In return, employees received some job experience, some spending money, the opportunity to save money and work toward their own goals and future.  How then did we arrive at the foolish line of thinking that led us to believe that employer's are somehow responsible for their employee's lot in life? If you are forty and trying to provide for a family as a fast food cashier, perhaps a re-examination of your goals is in order. It is not your employer's fault if you are still there. This shallow, simplistic and illogical mind-set nurtured by the liberal nanny state is destroying our workforce. It is the height of arrogance to make demands of employers in this modern era. We are not talking about sweat shops and untenable working conditions here. Yet employees who have failed to excel, failed to learn, failed to make themselves valuable to their employers have the gall to picket and demand more money. Your worth in the marketplace is what will get you higher wages.

When fast food workers really want to earn a living wage, the formula is simple. Work. Work hard. Learn. Increase your abilities. Gain skill and training. When employees make themselves so valuable to their employers that they can't run their business without them, that will be reflected in their wages. Employers owe employees nothing more than a paycheck (and all the other requirements the government has foisted upon them). What employees do with their money and time is not the employer's problem or responsibility. In the recent case of a Seattle executive who equalized salary across his company, including his own, at $70,000 per year, good for him. If he can afford to do that and run a profitable business under that model I salute him. It may or may not work well in the long run for this company. It will likely end as a case study in human nature. The marketplace will respond dispassionately. But that decision was his alone to make--it is not a decision that can or should be made by politicians, unions or employees.

We live in such a whiny society. It is time we put on our collective big boy pants and stop blaming everyone else in the world for our problems. This is America and yes, I believe it's still the Land of Opportunity. But Opportunity only opens the door to those who will work hard, risk much and take personal responsibility. This nation was not forged and carved and created by the lazy, the entitled and the whiners.  Look to the past--that is where we will find our future.