Patterico's Pontifications

7/22/2019

Rep. Rashida Tlaib: Paging Bernie Sanders!

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:05 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Last week, JVW wrote about Bernie Sanders’ unionized staffers demanding a “living wage” of $15 per hour. Today, Rep. Rashida Tlaib upped the ante:

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) called for a $20 federal minimum wage less than a week after the House of Representatives voted to raise the wage to $15 over the next six years.

A video from America Rising shows Tlaib making the remarks at an event for One Fair Wage, an organization that lobbies to raise the federal minimum tipped wage. Tlaib said the $15 minimum wage demand needs to be updated to reflect the rising price of food.

“By the way, when we started it, it should have been $15. Now I think it should be $20,” she said.

“It should be $20 an hour, $18 to $20 at this point,” she repeated, continuing to claim that the price of food such as milk and eggs has increased.

Reality bites:

Alfredo Ortiz, president of the Job Creators Network, told the Free Beacon, “America can’t afford a $15 minimum wage, never mind $20.”

Ortiz also pointed to recent move by the Bernie Sanders campaign to cut hours for its staff as an example of the economic impact wage increases have.

“It’s a shame Rep. Tlaib didn’t hear that Bernie Sanders is cutting his staff’s hours to meet their demands for a $15 minimum wage,” Ortiz said. “If she won’t listen to job creators about the unintended consequences of a higher minimum wage, maybe she’ll listen to a socialist politician.”

We’ve seen how mandatory wage hikes have forced layoffs, reduction in work hours, businesses closing their doors, and an ever-increasing focus on developing automation to replace the live worker. This in turn leaves the once employed low-skilled worker now unemployed. Here’s a look at the real life consequences of raising the minimum wage.

Last week, House Democrats passed the “Raise the Wage Act”, which would increase the federal minimum to $15 an hour by 2024, and after 2025 the minimum wage would be tied to inflation.

My question as well, especially as the next round of debates are just a week away. Tlaib’s timing couldn’t be better:

Democratic candidates, including the relative centrist Joe Biden, have come out in favor of a $15 minimum wage. But given how in the previous debate Democrats came out in favor of radical proposals including providing free health insurance to illegal immigrants that had never really been part of the national conversation, it would be interesting to see if any of the candidates would feel the need to join Tlaib’s call for a $20 per hour. If they do not support a $20 minimum wage, it would be interesting to hear all of them articulate on what basis they support a $15 minimum wage while believing a $20 minimum wage would be too high.

[I]s there a level at which Democrats believe the government could set a minimum wage that would be so high that the negative effects would outweigh the positive effects?

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

19 Responses to “Rep. Rashida Tlaib: Paging Bernie Sanders!”

  1. Bernie staffers smacking themselves in the head…

    Dana (bb0678)

  2. AmeriKKKa can’t afford 15$ an hour minimum wage where the top 1% own 90% of the wealth in this country. When the wealthy and their libertarian conservative running dogs say we can’t afford medicare for all as the wealthy might have to wait in line if poor people got medical treatment. Then the populist voting majority will say if we can’t afford medicare for we can’t afford the wealthy or their libertarian conservative stooges.

    lany (89b845)

  3. She’s one cray cray lady!

    Patricia (3363ec)

  4. Dialing to eleventy, what it means in practice is more robots that will displace low skilled labor

    Narciso (5d1b28)

  5. Excellent post. Thank you.

    felipe (023cc9)

  6. Whom is she supporting in the primary?

    nk (dbc370)

  7. The wang guy, maybe the mayor of Miramar (when I saw that I snorfled)

    Narciso (5d1b28)

  8. I live one city over from Miramar, and I never heard of him.

    In fact, other than when his name is dutifully listed among the Gang of Twenty-Odd by the media, I don’t ever hear of him. Miramar must run itself.

    Kishnevi (170c4a)

  9. Thank you, felipe, I appreciate it.

    Dana (bb0678)

  10. Narciso, it is after all the world’s oldest profession.

    Kishnevi (170c4a)

  11. Yes, Patricia, she is looney tunes… has been for a while, apparently…

    https://twitter.com/NewsChute/status/1152675252901752832

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  12. I guess he got it from teen vogue, lib dems are trying to out crazy labor

    Narciso (5d1b28)

  13. So what do the candidates do?

    Dana (bb0678)

  14. The logical response would be to run from this, but I don’t see it happening, they will likely campaign on this thinking Hillary was too milquetoast

    Narciso (5d1b28)

  15. Why stop at $20? Wouldn’t $25 be even more lavish and provide even more money to raise a family on? For that matter, how about $50? These are the kind of questions that should be asked of Rep. Tlaib, to see if she recognizes there exists a point at which a minimum wage becomes a destructive force.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  16. Why not $50? Why not $100?

    The numbers are arbitrary, and, even if they don’t cause widespread unemployment, the “pay increase” will become meaningless in a short period of time as inflation eats up all of the supposed gains.

    Advocaat (33a09d)

  17. It should be $20 an hour, $18 to $20 at this point,”

    This cost ofliving isn’t even the same in every satte.

    It’s at 86 in Mississippi and 119 in Hawaii (because of the Jones Act in part). It;38% more expensive to live in Hawaii (state average) than in Mississippi.

    (Actually my source gives this in terms of the worrth of the dollar,so it’s 84 in Mississippi and 116 in Hawaii. I did the reciprocals)

    This comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis figures for 2016.

    Four states are at 100.They are Florida, Rhode Island, Oregoon and Delaware.Of course these are
    statewide averages.

    I went to the Bureay u of econoic Analysis wesite and managed to find this:

    https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

    Across states, Hawaii had the highest all items RPP (118.5) and Mississippi had the lowest (85.7). Across large metropolitan areas – those with population greater than two million – San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA had the highest all items RPP (128.0) and Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN (90.0) had the lowest

    So that’s a 42% differential between the
    highest cost major metropolitan area and the lowest (between San Francisco and Cincinnati)

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  18. I found the whole results. It’s a graphic not a table.

    https://www.bea.gov/news/2019/real-personal-income-states-and-metropolitan-areas-2017

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)


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