Friday, January 11, 2013

Make It Illegal to Offer a Job -- Raise the Minimum Wage

State after state is in the process of increasing the minimum wage and there is now a renewed call to raise the federal minimum wage.

What is a minimum wage law?  It is a law that makes it illegal to offer a prospective employee a job.  The idea is that outlawing job creation creates jobs.  That seems to be how Governor Cuomo sees it in his push for a minimum wage hike.

If this is such a great job creation idea, why not go whole hog.  Raise the minimum wage to $ 500 per hour.  Then, no job will pay less than the amount necessary to live in luxury.  Gone will be poverty at this wage rate.

Even some economists have argued that increasing the minimum wage creates jobs.  If that is so, why don't we subject them to a minimum wage?  Why not say that no one can be an economist unless he is paid $ 10,000 per hour?  That should solve their problem.

Maybe there are other ways we can dream up to lock up employers who offer people jobs.  That should get the economy going.