Minimum wage, the standard set for human worker’s rights back in 1938. The federal minimum wage has been raised 22 times since that time.
The first state to raise minimum wage willingly, is the one state to benefit from the increased income taxes. after enough states bring up minimum wage, things begin to level out to no one benefiting.
Picture this example.
You own a store. You have two employees. Employee 1 has been with you for 6 years and you pay that employee $15 an hour. Employee 2 just started 5 months ago and is making $8.50 an hour. You suddenly have to pay your $8.50 an hour employee $15 an hour. Your overhead for employee 2 has just increased to near double. Employee 2 is still green and only knows what few functions they have learned in 5 months, which is nowhere near what employee 1 learned over the course of 6 years. So.. Do you give employee 1 a raise? Not all companies will. Let’s just say you do not have enough income at your business to give employee 1 that raise just yet, you may hold out until they complete their 7th year. I mean, cost of living hasn’t gone up, just minimum wage. Right?
Now you have to bump the cost of your goods a tad bit to cover the new cost of employee 2, may as well go ahead and move cost up a tad more because employee 1 is due pretty soon for a raise anyway.
Do you give employee 1 near double the pay they were making? or just the difference in 7.50 and 15? Bump employee 1 to 22.50? or bump employee 1 to $28ish? Or just be realistic and continue to give employee 1 their normal $1 an hour raise each year? Remember this is coming from YOUR income.
So now everyone is making more and everyone is paying more, how does this relate to the state being selfish?
Taxes.
That state is now bringing in more income tax and more on sales tax.
If you are making more money an hour, then you have a greater income, then you pay more in taxes. Since the store who pays your wage is charging more to cover your cost, This means the amount of tax per item being paid has increased. From gasoline, to bubble gum, to cars, to lipstick, to nail clippers.. Pretty much every single thing sold in that state is bringing in more taxes.
Now that state is bringing in more money and the cost of everything is slightly higher now.
Now other states follow up on this and start doing the same thing to get out of debt and it somewhat works, except the national cost of products begins to increase across the board. Then eventually every state is doing this or they will get left in super uber debt and everyone will be poor in the states that were late to join the taxes (rob Peter to pay Paul) trick. Now everyone who was making what minimum wage is now, is now making minimum wage and everyone is working the same amount of hours to buy the things that minimum wage was struggling to buy before. You just brought the people who earned their pay, down to minimum wage and the cost of living per labor hours has not gotten any better.
In short, raising minimum wage is a hustle.
Want better life? Do something to prove it.