A Perfect Example Of Unintended Consequences - Minimum Wage Edition

During the campaigns of both Hillary and Bernie we keep hearing promises to raise the minimum wage, pretending that somehow doing so will end poverty. The big problem with that promise is that it will have just the opposite effect, putting more people into the poorhouse when they lose the jobs they have that aren't worth the $15 an hour some have proposed as the new minimum wage. It proves to anyone with even a smattering of economic knowledge that neither Hillary or Bernie have any understanding of the bad effects such a wage increase.

There are already examples of what such wage increases will do. A number of cities have already increased their minimum wages well above the federal minimum and the effects have not been what was promised. One of the biggest is that hiring has faded away, particularly in the hospitality industry (hotels and restaurants), one group that was supposed to benefit from the wage increases.

U.S cities that implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more in 2015 have seen a strikingly similar aftermath: Job gains have fallen to multiyear lows at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality venues.

The data aren't, for the most part, stark and reliable enough to amount to smoking-gun proof.

But Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — all on the leading edge of the push for big minimum wage hikes — all show worrisome job trends.

Do that nationwide and watch what happens to hiring then. One thing I can promise: teen unemployment will skyrocket because no one wants to hire anyone with no job experience at what are really skilled or semi-skilled labor wages. Some won't be able to afford hiring anyone at that pay rate.

If yet another example is needed, one that includes only a modest pay increase above minimum wage, then take a look at one of the biggest retail operations in the world, Walmart.

After they raised wages, many worker's hours were cut and now Walmart is closing a number of stores that are no longer profitable. One has to wonder what the progressives who pushed so hard for the wage increase will think about the unintended consequences of their demands.

Then again I expect they're start blaming corporate greed as the only factor that prompted the closings. But what so many of them forget is that any business, including Walmart, has to make a profit or go out of business. Like many other businesses out there, Walmart's profit margin is not large, sitting somewhere around 7%. Only the fact that they have such a huge market share generates the large monetary gains. Start eating into that profit to meet the demands of the progressive economic 'experts' and the profits will turn to losses and the business will spiral into eventual bankruptcy, yet it will somehow still be the fault of the “greedy” business owners.