With all the whining going on over paying a livable minimum wage of $15 an hour, you’d think the sky was falling. The basic argument against raising the minimum wage is that it would raise prices. If that’s the case, how about all of us take a 50 percent cut in pay so prices will go down? That’s the logic that’s being regurgitated.
The price of oil has been the driving factor behind rising food prices and just about everything else. But we continue to consume oil. Prices, have, and will continue to rise whether minimum wage goes up or not.
Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would simply pull workers up to a standard of living equal to 1970. That year one could buy a Big Mac for 45 cents. Then you could buy a gallon of gas for 36 cents and minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. Move the decimal point once to the right and that is the cost of those same things today…
Mark Butschke
Snohomish
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