Feldsteins on Minimum Wage

Let me explain some fundamentals. People need to eat. People need a safe place to sleep.

The Feldsteins and others of their ilk act as though those of us who advocate raising the minimum wage want to make the masses millionaires. We do not. We ask only that everyone who is able and willing to work be paid enough to live in modest comfort. You may call this socialism. We call it basic human decency.

(I won’t bother to mention that those who make more money spend more money; or that a fair minimum wage may actually lure some people away from welfare rolls; or that higher wages allow workers to share more of the tax burden.)

I can almost accept the boss dining on chateaubriand at Chasen’s while the employee eats a quarter-pounder at McDonald’s. However, when the boss dines on crepes suzette at Maxim’s in Paris while the employee scrounges to find a scrap of stale bread, something must and will change.

STEVEN H. SHANE

Studio City