Minimum Wage Talk, the Worst Sort of Pandering

GoLocalProv’s Kate Nagle cites RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity CEO Mike Stenhouse in her article, today, on talk of raising the minimum wage. As the Center’s report from last spring suggests, a minimum wage of $10.10 would destroy an estimated 3,466 Rhode Island jobs, and it wouldn’t affect the demographic that the politicians promote:

… 24,846 Rhode Islanders currently have jobs that pay them at a rate of $8.25 per hour or less. The “typical” profile … is of a white non-Hispanic high-school graduate, 21-years-old or younger and with no college experience, who lives with his or her parents and works 20-34 hours per week.

The Providence Journal’s PolitiFact crew contacted us a couple of months ago to fact-check that claim, but we haven’t heard anything since. (It doesn’t take much cynicism to think they’ve found other topics more interesting that didn’t require them to give the Center a “True.”)

But the economics aren’t really the key concern of most politicians. Rather, they want to say to a large group of people, “I will give you stuff.” Or, more accurately, “I will make other people give you their stuff.”

The part about 3,466 people losing their jobs kind of disrupts the narrative.

Politicians have internalized as a moral given that this redistribution is allowed and appropriate. We’ve permitted them to conclude that they have a right to take our stuff away, or force us to give it away.

The only question, then, is whether you’re in the disfavored group that ends up giving more than you get back. One suspects that individual answers to that question help explain who’s leaving our state and region for other states and who’s coming here from other countries.

For the people making the top-down decisions — politicians and bureaucrats — the most relevant question isn’t whether this flow is good for the economy, but rather, whether it transforms the population into one that will vote for them and their massive budgets.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in The Ocean State Current, including text, graphics, images, and information are solely those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the views and opinions of The Current, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, or its members or staff. The Current cannot be held responsible for information posted or provided by third-party sources. Readers are encouraged to fact check any information on this web site with other sources.

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