TCTI: Too Crazy Too Ignore
 Dave Ross
AP: 0eb483e5-7791-4bde-bf71-32659ca4cafe
In this Feb. 13, 2013 photo, President Barack Obama speaks to workers and guests at the Linamar Corporation plant in Arden, N.C. Obama says raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour and tying future increases to inflation will raise the incomes of millions living in poverty and spur job growth. Business groups are not so sure. They complain that boosting the federal rate from $7.25 an hour would discourage employers from hiring new workers, hurting the very people Obama aims to help. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Raise the federal minimum wage to $9!?

BY Dave Ross  on February 14, 2013 @ 5:58 am (Updated: 6:11 am - 2/14/13 )

President Obama is pushing for a $9 federal minimum wage. That worries small business owners - like this restaurant owner in Aubrey Texas, "I have actually a couple choices, close down. The other choice is to increase prices."

One side argues the minimum wage pushes unemployment up, by making workers more expensive. The other side argues it pushes unemployment down by giving workers more to spend. It depends on whether you're looking at people as employees or customers.

But we all need to pause, reach for a bottle of water, take a sip, and relax for a moment.

Because all of us are both employees AND customers.

In Washington State the minimum wage has been indexed to inflation for years, and just hit $9.19. And yes unemployment in Washington State is at about 7.6 percent. Nothing to brag about. But that's the same as the unemployment rate in West Virginia, where the minimum is almost $2 less, it's the same as Tennessee which has no minimum wage, and it's lower than in Georgia where the state minimum wage is only $5.15, but unemployment is about 8.6 percent.

And I think the reason the $9 wage hasn't crippled Washington State is that the $9 ends up being spent pretty quickly at other businesses.

The way I look at it, we all need a place to live, we all gotta eat. And if we can't get it by working, we'll get it from the government, or by moving in with relatives. Which means when wages shrink - government grows, and you're gonna have company in the spare bedroom.

Dave Ross, KIRO Radio Talk Show Host
Dave Ross is co-host of The Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO Radio (weekdays 9-Noon) and never too far from the spotlight.
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Comments (132)


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  • Paul Kersey wrote...
    for a guy who takes several multi-million $ vacations/year
    February 14, 2013 6:15 am
    that little pay raise to his followers should be an insult.
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  • Concerned US Citizen wrote...
    $9
    February 14, 2013 6:18 am
    I can hardly wait till they raise it to $9.00. Then I can pay $17 for lunch at McDonalds. This sounds like an Obama plot to cut down on America's addiction to fast food by raising their labor costs to increase menu prices. Goodbye dollar menu. These type jobs were for kids after school jobs. They were not meant to support a family on. Wake up America to what this administration is doing to the economy!!!
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Somebody wrote that a $9.00 mini-wage will result in $17 lunch bills at McDonalds
    February 14, 2013 6:42 am
    Really?

    We already have a $9 mini-wage in Washington. You can buy a McDonald's cheeseburger for 99-cents. The 2500 calorie "combos" with fancy burgers, large fries, and large drinks are typically $5-6. If you're paying $17 for lunch at McDonalds, you must be feeding your entire family.

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  • SeattleNerd wrote...
    Chuck, clearly it was an exaggeration...
    February 14, 2013 7:15 am
    But if the nation-wide mini-wage was $9, we would see inflation across the board, no question about it. Several factors contribute to this. 50 years ago no one in the US could afford $4/gal gasoline... now its the norm. Why? because everyone in the nation can afford to pay it, relatively speaking. Paying someone in Montana $9/hour base pay is CRAZY. The cost of living is so much different there. It a nice place, but you can also by land for pennies on the dollar. its all relative depending on where you go around the nation.
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  • mnpat wrote...
    Disagree Chuck
    February 14, 2013 7:33 am
    I actually visited Seattle about 4 years ago and stopped at the McDonalds off of Mercer, 2 cheesburgers and a small drink....if I remember correctly, that little stop cost about $10 for the assorted Seattle/King Copunty taxes and parking. Where I actually live the two cheesburgers and drink will run you about $3.50
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  • Steinsbu wrote...
    Concerned US Citizen
    February 14, 2013 9:09 am
    MORON
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  • mnpat wrote...
    Never meant to be a sustainable wage....
    February 14, 2013 6:18 am
    was used for entry level positions. Want a better wage, get a better education and make yourself a better canidate for a better position in life.
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  • Rich White and Orange wrote...
    mnpat
    February 14, 2013 7:45 am
    And borrow money from your parents if you need to.

    Really new and interesting perspective you have there. This could be a real winner!

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  • messiah101 wrote...
    mnpat Get a better education
    February 14, 2013 10:07 am
    OK but your assuming that there will be jobs available where they can use those added skills and of course if their are jobs available that will shrink the job pool at the entry level which will result in employers needing to pay higher wages for entry level workers
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  • sportsguru wrote...
    Of course you raise the minimum wage
    February 14, 2013 6:31 am

    If you want your citizenry to be able to afford the middle class lifestyle that you are promising, you will only be as strong a country as your lowest paid workers. Let's see, the cost to live has increased, medical cost increase every year, property tax, food, cars, gas etc, but you don't want to increase the standard of living to mirror the inflation all around us,lol.

    Of course it will also bring needed tax revenue as well which makes it a win win for both the worker and the government, who doesn't want to make more money, just follow the money and WHO don't want you to make more and want you to believe that making less is BETTER for you,lol.

    DEFICITS DON'T MATTER

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  • ohyea53 wrote...
    If you add the pay increase plus the taxes that go with it...
    February 14, 2013 6:34 am
    It will cost an employer about $6000.00 per year for a full time employee. Say it's a restaurant with 15 servers earning min wage. That's $90000.00 a year. I don't know how any business could absorb the kind of cost increase. If a $9.00 /hour min wage would go into effect there will be a lot bus places go out of business. Oh and don't forget Barrycare. Add that to the mix also.
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  • hnuh wrote...
    02-14-2013 Raise the federal minimum...
    February 14, 2013 6:35 am
    I work in an industry that employs workers in a range of skill from common labor, no identifiable skill, through high level physical and upper mid level intellectual skill sets. The actual effects of the ever increasing minimum wage are several: First, we are less and less able to hire people without work experience due to the cost of teaching them how to work, not skill, just basic how to work. Second, the people in lower mid level skill development are pushed noticeably closer to the bottom wage rate due to the rising of that bottom, reducing their incentive to make the efforts necessary to get to the higher skill levels. Third, higher skill level workers are compensated progressively less in relation to the bottom. It is about three to one now, where it used to be four and sometimes five to one. This represents the destruction of the middle class without the slightest improvement in the lot of the minimum wage worker. Success story? For whom? Certainly not the unskilled who find it more difficult to obtain employment, nor for the skilled who watch their effort diminish in value relative to those unskilled individuals, nor for the employer who wishes to set people on a skill development path and through that development and consequent compensation obtain success for himself. The minimum wage scam is a typical primitive leftist idea, it assumes everything is a zero sum game, that where a person is that person will remain. In the socialist worker's paradises we have seen this is true. In the one these idiots are trying to develop that misery is not yet so. May it never be.
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  • maplefish wrote...
    bravo hnuh
    February 14, 2013 7:45 am
    Very well explained. We all know that minimum wage was not meant to support families, which is always exploited yet, never clarified due to Obama's class warfare rhetoric.
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  • messiah101 wrote...
    hnuh
    February 14, 2013 10:18 am
    In the 1960s when I started working it was not at all unusual for a business to hire workers at trainee positions.I was a machinist trainee running a turret lathe and a trainee computer operator trainees were considered a business expense,both jobs paid at least 50% more then the minimum wage of that time.In fact even common laborers earned higher then minimum wage I know as I dug ditches for a year.
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  • Samm62 wrote...
    insanity
    February 14, 2013 6:35 am
    Why should minimum wage jobs support families??? Aren't they meant for entry-level jobs or no-skill jobs? Small business doesn't have a chance. Pay needs to reflect at least some skill and experience.
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  • Gimmer wrote...
    Exactly...
    February 14, 2013 8:58 am
    ...it also reflects an *opportunity* for someone just starting out to gain experience/skills because the employer can balance the risk of paying someone $5-7/hr. I don't think many folks in WA (especially the Puget Sound) truly appreciate just how much this affects everyone's cost of living. This isn't PSH, just a note of gov't incrementalism. To critics: try running a business sometime, especially in agriculture.
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  • sportsguru wrote...
    They used that same argument
    February 14, 2013 6:37 am
    When the minimum wage went to $5, $6, etc. None of that has occurred. Sorry, try again
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    And 'they' were right.
    February 14, 2013 6:51 am
    Do you really think restaurant dish washing machines would be in wide use were it not for hand washing being too costly ? ..... Or self service gas pumps ?
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  • sportsguru wrote...
    ron prevost
    February 14, 2013 7:16 am

    That's called technology, it's has nothing to do with minimum wage,lol. You think somebody said that the dishwasher or gas station attendant want to much money so we are going to make a machine for it,lol. You are too funny.

    I would love to automate congress but that program has not been invented yet.

    Basically, what your saying is despite the inflation that we live thru on a yearly basis, it's good for America to keep a segment of America from having a wage that reflects the inflation, right?

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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Sports, Congress has already been automated.
    February 14, 2013 7:39 am
    Try voting against your party caucus, and see what happens.

    But if we look at automation vs cost, just go to Oregon where self pimping of gas is illegal. Keeps more attendants working, regardless of wage, but at a higher gas cost. (But, no. can't be compared directly to Washington prices due to vast tax differences, etc.). ... And that dish washing machine IS a heck of a lot cheaper than hand washing, so it's not JUST technology.

    No, we don't 'need' a segment of our population not keeping up with inflation. Although we don't need inflation in the first place (different story), given free play, effective minimum wages (below which no one will work for) WILL keep pace with prices. ... But that's given free play.

    In this economy - no matter who controls congress or the white house, various forms of welfare ALSO influence effective minimum wage. Bill Clinton aside, if you make as much - or nearly as much - from a dole as working, why work ? ... No matter what a minimum wage might be.

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  • Stevebo wrote...
    RE: wsualumn
    February 14, 2013 7:21 am
    I actually agree with you, and I have a similar feeling about the matter.
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  • It's me! Ha ha! wrote...
    Government, IE Obama, is telling private business how much to pay employees.
    February 14, 2013 7:25 am
    IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENTS PLACE To tell private American businesses what to pay employees. This raise in the minimum wage is no more than a tax increase on them. Along with the massive tax increase to pay for "Free" ObamaCare and the payroll taxes, the hike in gas prices, electric, water, (Remember our dry February and thus water shortages this summer!) This will only add to the number of business that will go out of business and the increase in unemployment.

    Thanks to Comrade Dear Leader Obama!

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