Ive seen a couple of people post this meme in the last week or two, and of course it does cause an emotional reaction favoring an increase in the federal minimum wage. Like all such propaganda, however, the emotional reaction is the goal...a little research and a rational, logical attitude will reveal that it is all just smoke and mirrors, obfuscation and redirection. This is my response, for all those who buy into this liberal manipulation: According to world.tax-rates.org, Australia and Germany are tied with the 6th highest income tax rates in the world, France is 13th, the US is 19th, and Denmark is 32nd. And that doesnt take into account the relative cost of living in those different countries. Unfortunately for the people who come up with this kind of propaganda, it wouldnt be possible to consider the cost of living in this kind of comparison. For instance, as Denmark is a much smaller country made up of far more homogeneous communities than the United States, the cost of living there will be more consistent from one community to another. However, in a country as large and diverse as the US, such consistency is nonexistent...you cant live on the same income in Honolulu, Hawaii, as you can in Madisonville, Kentucky. Even on a state level it can be ridiculous. Would you have McDonalds employees in places like Lexington, Louisville, Bowling Green, or Frankfort making the same as McDonalds employees in Providence, Greenville, or Madisonville? Or worse, the employees in the smaller towns making as much as the ones in the larger towns? Because of this, many places in the US have a higher minimum wage (by local or state law) than the federal minimum wage. Furthermore, even if there werent a locally mandated minimum wage above the federal limit, competition for employees still frequently increases the wages offered by many employers, which allows an equilibrium to be achieved between wages offered by employers and wages accepted by employees. Mandating a federal minimum wage in a country as large and as diverse as the US is not only ridiculous, it is detrimental, as it unnaturally prevents this equilibrium from being achieved. If the federal government mandates a minimum wage of $15/hour, such as so many people have requested, whats really going to happen? Maybe it will provide a better living to people in areas with higher costs of living, but in places with lower costs of living, it will cause a run on those jobs...I mean, whos going to want to work in a factory for the same money they could be making at a Taco Bell? The simple fact of the matter is that, if people are not happy with working for minimum wage, they should work harder and/or get educated, and get a job which pays MORE than minimum wage...or they can eat Ramen and save their money for a plane ticket to Denmark...
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 22:03:36 +0000