Barack Obama, Economic Genius

From Obama's State of Confusion speech:

We know our economy is stronger when we reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong. That’s why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, nineteen states have chosen to bump theirs even higher. 

Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.

First, let's consider Obama's imaginary worker: "...full-time...making the minimum wage". Does such a creature even exist?? One of my predictions for 2014 was:

The 29 hour work week will become the de facto standard for the majority of new hires in 2014

According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), some additional 2.5 million full time jobs will be lost, liberating them from the need to work, according to most good liberals. As more and more jobs become part time, my prediction is well on its way to coming to pass.

He goes on...

"a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong."

Yeah it is! Who in their right mind would start a family and have children if they are working a job only pulling down minimum wage? And if there is such a thing as a full time worker, making just minimum wage, sole provider for the family, the percentage of workers meeting this criteria must be approaching zero. And before I hearing the bleating about a lack of compassion, we have welfare, food stamps and any number of programs to assist those unfortunate few.

Workers (and I use the term loosely) who receive minimum wage are primarily unskilled, without experience, possibly someone's first job. Employer paid health care benefits were originally devised as a way to get around wage controls and to reward valuable employees with the equivalent of a higher wage. The reality is today, that employers are reducing the ranks of those paid lower wages in order to avoid the expense of government mandated health care (for less productive employees).

Employers want to pay productive workers as much as they can. When I was a hiring manager, I sought to start my people at the highest possible salary, and grant raises and provide bonuses to retain the workers I trained. The idea that all businesses want to do is exploit their workers and pay them as little as possible, is a liberal old wives' tale. Those unfortunate enough to work for such an employer are free to improve their education and skills, as they garner experience, making them more desirable to those enlightened employers who know that they succeed along with their employees.

According to the US Dept. of Labor,

"In 2012, there were 3.6 million hourly paid workers in the United States with wages at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. These workers made up 4.7 percent of the 75.3 million workers age 16 and over who were paid at hourly rates.".

Less than five percent? Weren't the Obamabots recently all bleating about how insignificant the five million people who were losing their private insurance because they were 'less than five per cent' of the work force?

Closed captioning for the Irony (and Math) Impaired: If five million people losing their insurance are insignificant, then 3.6 million is less significant than that. You can't have it both ways!

So, if an insignificant number of people, according to good liberals, being caused financial hardship because their affordable insurance was cancelled, why should we be more upset over a lesser and transient number of people who will be paid minimum wage until such time as they have the experience and skills to earn more?

Also, working less than full time increases...what was it the President calls it? "Income inequality"! Seems to me that even if we raised the minimum wage, there's going to be 'income inequality' between those working forty hours a week and those only working twenty nine! And between those working twenty nine hours a week and those who are unemployed... That whole pesky math thing again!

As Obamacare crashes and burns, the old minimum wage canards are being hauled out to distract people from the real economy killer, as government tries to take over one sixth of the economy. It is an election year, and the Democrats have nothing to run on but fear itself. They are counting on their supporters being math impaired enough to believe all the doublespeak they utter. That and trying to pull as many un-Constitutional extensions and delays of Obamacare mandates out of their hats, at least until after the midterm and 2016 elections.

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Cross posted at Proof Positive