Minimum wage laws in California exceed the national minimum wage. When government increases the minimum wage, some workers lose their jobs. Employers automate. Suppose we didn’t make employers pay the higher wage, but used the general tax base to plus-up the wages of low salaried workers instead? Those workers would earn as much more as if we increased the minimum wage, and fewer would be laid off. Low-income workers need a hand: it’s barely possible for a family to get by on a minimum wage in California. Expand the earned-income tax credit instead of increasing the minimum wage. Democratic party chieftains, and their union supporters, demand support for virtually any increase in minimum wage level that is proposed. Republican party leaders tend to oppose spending government budget dollars to increase the earned-income tax credit.
The above are statements on several public policy issues drafted by Tom Campbell, former US Congressman, former California State Senator, former Director of Finance for California, and currently Interim Chairman of the Common Sense Party. They are meant to initiate consideration of several important issues; they are not the official views of the Common Sense Party. Please feel free to submit your own thoughts on these issues on the Open Policy Discussion Page.
Any job that can be automated shouldn’t exist. It’s a waste for large employers to pay sub-minimum wage for humans to work cash registers, for example, when we have a shortage of caretakers and other healthcare workers. We need humans to work with humans who value human contact, not to stock shelves, do inventory, or slow down people who really just want to get through the line as quickly as possible. When the machines aren’t intentionally programmed to be wrong or otherwise braindead, most Californians can check ourselves out faster than minimum-wage cashiers. (Note: The cashiers at Costco are great and start at higher than minimum wage.)
Large corporations and rich employers shouldn’t be able to get around minimum wage. Large employers already shift the costs to their customers and take the profits anyway. For example, let’s say that the employer is a fancy exclusive golf club, expensive gym, or luxury hotel that requires a massive membership fee to join (partly to keep it exclusive). They shouldn’t be allowed to pay their employees $1/hr and expect all the taxpayers to pay the rest. If they can do that, all the worst and most despicable employers would flood the state and take advantage of the system. If they have to pay minimum wage, their customers will pay the difference, and if the customers don’t want to pay, those customers can shop elsewhere. If taxpayers do it, then all taxpayers have to pay even if they can’t afford to use that employer’s services.
That said, maybe it can make sense to help households under a certain level of income with one employee. If a head of household needs to hire a caretaker or child care worker or one employee to help for a few hours per day but can’t afford to pay them minimum wage, maybe taxpayers can help out on a sliding scale, depending on what the head of household makes.