On the way into work this AM I heard a Republican DE lawmaker Joe Fitzgerald of the NCC Chamber making some point about how unfair it was to business owners to raise the minimum wage. The quote was something like ‘Let’s face it, the price of everything is going up these days and some of the business owners aren’t going to keep the doors open if they have to pay an extra $0.50 an hour.’
So here is Joe’s that legislator’s statement in real English: Prices for everything are going up. The people that should suffer for that are the people that make the least amount of money in our economy. People working for minimum wage should just have to suffer along, because their food costs are rising, their fuel prices are rising, their energy costs are rising, their rent is rising, but their pay should stay the same, so that the business owner can still make his profit.
Look, if you have an employee that makes minimum wage, $0.50/hour is $20 a week. Give me a break. If all of your competition is in the same boat, you’ll be fine forking out another $100 a week for your 5 employees. Does anyone know who the quote was from this morning? Thanks, Anon.