Let the market set the minimum wage

In response to Katherine Sheehan’s recent letter calling for another minimum wage increase:

From 1800-1929, except for a brief period during the Civil War, inflation was virtually non existent. It shouldn’t take a genius to figure out we must have been doing something right back then and we must be doing something wrong now. Let’s get the all-knowing government out of the business of deciding a minimum wage and let the free market set the wages.

Think about that: If you are an average worker and your current job pays a decent amount, what would you do if the government suddenly jacked up the minimum to what it took you years of effort to get? Would you stand by and not care that teenagers just entering the job market are now earning what it took you years to reach? I am more inclined to believe you would want a raise. Same thing with those just above you: They wouldn’t be happy that you now make what they worked for, and so on.

This is exactly what happened when Democrats took Congress in 2007: The first thing they did was jack up the minimum wage by 50 percent from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour. The result was the worst recession since the Great Depression. Raising the minimum wage is not the solution to the problem, raising the minimum wage is the problem.

Minimum wage jobs were intended to be starter jobs to get experience in the workforce. They were never, ever intended to support a family.