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New Hampshire Gubernatorial candidates Steve Marchand and Molly Kelly are both dedicated Democrats with designs on using government to limit your potential for prosperity. They both support a New Hampshire minimum wage of $15.00/hour; which we know will result in job losses and less monthly income for the very people they claim to want to help.
Nothing new about that. But this is new.
Employees and employers have this thing they do where they agree to the value of any given individual contribution to an operation. Left to its own devices the job market and the free market will find parity not just in costs but prices.
It’s a beautiful thing and it works. But Democrats can’t leave anything alone.
They are obsessed with using the government to meddle. Intrusions that result in outcomes opposite to those advertised.
I use the word hate in my title in the context in which it would be used by Democrats were Republicans engaged in some advertised priority they had spun as doing damage to some “protected” class of persons.
In this case, the object of the Left’s abuse is The Poor™ (often referred to inaccurately as ‘working families’), who are being herded around yet another progressive false idol. The higher minimum wage or living wage is a golden calf whose worship is sold as the path to better economic outcomes when it, in fact, delivers exactly the opposite.
And yet another Republican delivering a win for the Democrat / Socialist agenda. Steve had the goods (paid family leave) in expanding the Welfare State in MA and pushing the Socialist agenda of “Don’t worry – you don’t have to provide for yourself as everyone else will be coerced to take take of you.”. Ayup, furthering the Progressive mantra that you don’t have to be self-responsible and plan ahead for you and your family. And they wonder why we constantly beat on the GOP?
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker Signs Bill to Raise Minimum Wage to $15
Gov. Charlie Baker (R) of Massachusetts signed a bill Thursday to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2023.
The new law will set the wage to $11 per hour and then raise the pay rate in steps until it hits $15 in five years. The wage for tipped workers will also increase but at a lower rate, going from $3.75 to $6.75 by 2023, according to Mass Live.The $15 wage will match California for the highest minimum wage in the nation by 2023.
“Republican” Massachusets Governor Charlie Baker (who is up for re-election this fall) signed a bill to raise the minimum wage, add permanent tax holiday weekend, and something Granite Stater’s luckily (just) avoided.
An $800 million paid family and medical leave program overseen by the state government and backed by a payroll tax will be launched so workers can more easily take care of themselves and their families without facing fiscal crises.
The 2-day (sales) tax holiday is “cute” but there will be no tax holiday from the 800 million in new plunder from employees and employers or it’s leasting effects.
…hurting the ones she professes to believe to be oppressed and MUST be set free by Government Decree (emphasis mine):
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker recently held a gala to raise funds for the One Fair Wage campaign which is designed to raise wages for those in the restaurant industry. Some tickets went for $50,000 and each dinner cost $500. This is did not sit well with many who happen to work in the restaurant business. Many within that industry fear that an increase in the minimum wage will result in job losses.
For heaven’s sake, that’s NEVER happened before! Just ask those in San Francisco and Seattle and other places where they’ve “lifted up the oppressed by making SURE they earn more”.
In fact, Joshua Chiasson, a representative for the Restaurant Workers of America, had this take on the gala:
A ballot initiative in Portland Maine to increase the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour failed last Tuesday. What makes this defeat so instructive is that Portland IS the Democrat Mecca of Maine. Forty-seven percent are registered Democrat. Six percent of its voters are members of the Green Party. In the last election for governor … Read more
We talk about how Seattle small business owners “feel” about that $15/hr minimum wage the progressives had to have, where not to go in New Hampshire if you want the base to vote for you, then its on to death taxes followed by a few minutes on electricity and energy.
During the progressive era, there was a movement among progressives to create a wage structure within the nation. A minimum wage. Their desire for this arbitrary sum assigned to the cost or value of labor had a particular purpose.
If employers had to pay even the least competent of their weak links a Benjamin an hour we could make everyone rich almost overnight.
The notion that New Hampshire needs to set a minimum wage higher than the current and equally arbitrary federal rate is as flawed a notion as the faux-benefit of a federal minimum wage in the first place. But New Hampshire Democrats and some Democrats elected as Republicans, continue to make a case for it.
But allowing the government to define an arbitrary price point for labor is absurd and anyone who has ever had a job already knows why.
The New Hampshire Democrat Party is wondering where Republican State Senator (and likely candidate for higher office) Jeb Bradley stands on the minimum wage? I confess, so do I.
Does State Senator Bradley embrace the left’s obsessive desire to depress employment among teens and minorities by using legislative force to define the value of labor or is he more inclined to let the person whose labor it is come to an agreement with an employer over the real value of their time and skill-set with regard to the position in which they are to be retained?
The New Hampshire Democrat position is that modern day Granite State employees and employers are simply too stupid or corrupt to be permitted to define these terms without government interference. Is that Senator Bradley’s position as well?
(H/T: AEIdeas)
For years, I have been saying “where are all the traditional teen-age entry level jobs?” with the stereotypical gas station high school attendants example. Yes, times have changed and the types of jobs of changed. Yes, there are some teens that have hit it big in the tech field where meritocracy and innovation can propel some to the top in a single step. On the other hand, what percentage of teens operate at that level?
Obama said that he wants to move the minimum wage to $9 – a “living wage” that can support a family at or above the poverty line. There’s a couple of problems with this:
Every good New Hampshire Democrat knows that the best way to have an immediate impact on jobs and the economy is to increase the cost of doing business. Making it cost more to run a business acts like a tax on the business owner, and Democrats love taxing business.
Enter HB127, An act relative to the state hourly minimum rate.
Rep Tim Horrigan and admitted socialist Peter Sullivan (New Hampshire Democrats), are unsatisfied with the machinations of the Federal government in the value of labor relative to the task at hand and are certain that they know better, not just than their Federal master in D.C., but better than every employer and employee in the entire Granite State, what any hour of labor is (at minimum) worth.
In true class warfare passion the prominent democrat schemster Mike Brunelle saw his minimum wage bill go down in flames yesterday, which was exactly the point. But all the politicking and future sound biting aside, what is the point? Democrats either don’t give a damn about jobs or are to daft to know any better.
After four years of defending the democrat budgeting strategy of spend first tax later (during what any democrat worth his donkeys-ass referred to endlessly as the ‘worst recession in history’), NHDP executive director and NH House rep from Manchester Mike Brunelle shows us his new conservative streak.
“No matter who you are, Republican or Democrat, you were elected to work on the economy and jobs. I don’t think the people of Manchester want them to be dealing with these social issues,” said Brunelle. “We need to be focused on the working families in this state. … Anything other than that is beyond frivolous.”
It is all part of their new strategy, as I pointed out here yesterday…