How High Would You Raise the Minimum Wage? (Video)

ReasonTV asked Californians what they thought the “right” minimum wage is. Unsurprisingly, most of the people in the “trendy, hipster enclave” of Silver Lake in Los Angeles just assumed a higher minimum wage is simply a no-brainer, win-win for society and workers. They didn’t hesitate to insist a $15-20 minimum wage was a necessity for the common decency of low-wage workers, even when presented with the prospect of major job losses if the minimum wage were raised. The video reminds us of when Peter Schiff asked Walmart shoppers if they would be willing to pay 15% more for their groceries if Walmart employees got a 15% raise.

Most economists agree that minimum wage laws lead to job losses, as those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder get priced out of the labor market. Reason points out that even as he was signing the new minimum wage law into effect, California Governor Jerry Brown admitted that raising the minimum wage didn’t make any economic sense:

Economically, minimum wages may not make sense. But morally and socially and politically, they make every sense, because it binds the community together…”

Brown is right about one thing – buying votes with higher minimum wages makes a lot of political sense. What happens when a society decides that warm fuzzy feelings of morality are more important than economic realities? Well, all you need to do is look to countries like Puerto Rico and Greece to see the endgame of those economic policies.

The trend seems to be that Americans will continue to push for higher minimum wages, despite creeping inflation that will weaken the value of the dollar. There’s only one way to protect your wealth from the economic illiteracy that seems to permeate our society – own assets that aren’t tied to the risks of public debt and poor economic policies: gold and silver bullion.

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