Sen. Chris Murphy has finally found a constituency that truly gets him. Robots and automated systems around the country likely whirled and beeped with approval as he introduced the Senate version of the Living Wage for All Act. At a time when workers are being replaced at record numbers due to the cheaper labor of automated systems and AI programs, Murphy moved to price out millions of more workers by increasing their costs.
The bill would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $25 per hour – a 245 percent increase – over 12 years. The far-left senator is following the lead of states like California, where Democrats dramatically cut jobs through such wage increases.
Murphy went on NBC to insist that he is “not a democratic socialist” but then attacked capitalism:
“[T]he Democratic Party has been historically way too timid in taking on corporate power. I think we have to understand that people do not believe that this version of capitalism has worked. And frankly, it hasn’t worked. … This version of capitalism isn’t working. Now, I make the argument in the book that we should embrace, you know, what I call a common good capitalism.”
He then added:
“And by the way, we can afford it. It’s not like we can’t pay a $25 minimum wage; we just choose not to because we’ve become okay with dozens and dozens of people in this country making hundreds of billions of dollars.”
It is not clear who the “we” is. While securing a law degree, Murphy has never run a business and has spent his life as a politician, spending other people’s money.
I previously wrote about wage hikes and the predictable loss of jobs that followed.
Democratic politicians from New York to California are pushing for a $30 minimum hourly wage for workers. Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and Democratic legislators in California herald their mandatory increases as providing a “living wage” for workers. In Los Angeles, a law requires hourly wages in the hotel and airport industries to rise by $2.50 each year until they reach $30 in 2028.
There is no question that workers are struggling with the high cost of living in California. But blindly raising taxes and minimum wages will exacerbate these problems, not eliminate them.
A recent report by researchers at the University of California-Santa Cruz found evidence of precisely what many economists had warned about in the state’s mandatory wage floors. Stephen Owen, an economics lecturer, explained that they found “a plethora of negative outcomes, such as higher menu prices for consumers, reductions in employee working hours, widespread elimination of overtime, and loss of benefits for employees.”
Hellbound and Down 