A different kind of post

 I know this article is about 2 months old but I couldn't not comment...Carmen Reinicke writes in this article that "Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over time would boost paychecks and reduce poverty" (see article here: The US is closer to a $15 federal minimum wage after Biden win). That sounds great, right? Except for this...I currently make more than $15/hr and less than $20/hr. I am clearly not alone in this world. My income won't be raised as a result of this. I will actually suffer, along with millions of others. This will NOT reduce poverty. It will simply raise the poverty level to account for the higher pay. Think about it. If I go to the grocery store and every cashier and stocker and bagger makes $15/hr instead of $8 or $9/hr, how will the owner of that grocery store compensate for that huge increase in payroll expenses? One of two ways: lay people off and work with a skeleton crew which means the lines will be even longer and the shelves will be even barer, not to mention the cleanliness will decrease...or increase the cost of every item in the store...which may be fine for someone who went from $8/hr to $15/hr...but for everyone else it will be another added expense. This isn't just limited to grocery stores. This will be EVERYWHERE. 

Of course, the other thought that crossed my mind as I read this is that this mentality, trying to raise everyone to the same economic status, is a cornerstone for socialism. Now, I will not argue whether socialism is good or bad...it is just like any other political theory in that there is surely both good and bad. The issue is, though, that even those "wonderful" socialist countries that everyone goes on about as examples have some pretty discouraging characteristics such as the fact that "their citizens pay some of the world’s highest taxes" according to Robert Longley (see article here: The Differences Between Communism and Socialism ).

Just as another clarification, this is not a political post at all. I do think that something needs to be done in this country. I also think there is a large disparity between what type of assistance of any kind is available for someone who has almost no income to no income and someone who is working hard to provide for their family. I can say that for many years I worked very hard to provide for my family and times were tough. There were too many times to count when I was scared that the electricity would be disconnected or that we wouldn't have enough groceries for the entire week. I made less than those $15/hr then but more than the minimum wage too. And whenever I would get to the point where I would think it was time to apply for government assistance, I would be told that I never qualified for cash assistance to help cover bills and rent and rarely even qualified for food stamps. The most I ever received was $200/month and that was when I had four kids in the house (Ross's daughter, Josiah, Maria, and Ben). That did help, anything did at that time. But it was also a LOT of jumping through hoops and interviews and paperwork and everything else...and no consideration for the fact that I had to be working during the times when they would set up those mandatory interviews. And when I chose to quit working to stay home with my kids because they needed their mom during some pretty difficult times, I didn't qualify for any assistance - because I quit my job to be a mother. My heart goes out to those people. The ones who are worked to the bone and exhausted and feeling like no matter what they do they can never get ahead in life and to top it all off, they feel like failures at home because their kids aren't getting mom (or dad) time and the house is dirty and the laundry is piling up and dinner is whatever's in the freezer or some Ramen. 

Ok, well,,,I guess my rant is over now. As some sweet friends would like to point out my favorite saying, all that to say...before you jump on any bandwagon, do a little real research. Look at the big picture and think about ALL of the ramifications. Ok, well, probably not ALL of them or else we would all be economists and that job would get pretty stressful pretty quick. But still, there's always two (or more) sides to every story and there's always a bigger picture.