Debate Over Living Wage
Re “Keep Goose That Lays Golden Egg,” Column Right, April 1: Diana Furchtgott-Roth claims that industry might secure all the PhD historians it wants for $30,000 a year. I believe that this underestimates the market for historians, who go for about $40,000 now at second- and third-tier colleges and slightly above that at community colleges.
She also claims that our current 4.4% unemployment is a record low. Perhaps Furchtgott-Roth should have a historian fact-check her work. During World War II, unemployment dipped well below 2%, and in 1953, unemployment stood at 2.9% and inflation remained well under 4%.
She repeats the myth that a living wage will lead to higher unemployment and inflation. I had thought that the market for this argument would have dried up by now, given the extensive play it received during the last round of debates on raising the minimum wage. Then, as now, we heard that raising the wages of those at the bottom would hurt those at the bottom. By her own reckoning, Furchtgott-Roth proves that the last round of wage hikes has not hurt the economy.
JEFFREY KOLNICK PhD
Department of History
Southwest State University
Marshall, Minn.
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Perhaps the only way to rid the world of Furchtgott-Roths would be to have them all scrub toilets at LAX for a year or two, at $5.15 an hour. Certainly the urge to make more money is a powerful stimulus for people to climb the economic ladder, but the question is whether those unequipped to make the climb should have to live like dogs.
JOHN BURNS
Costa Mesa
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Forced wage increases in conjunction with labor laws have drastically increased youth unemployment. When I was 12, I had two jobs, a paper route and sweeping floors and folding hangers at a dry cleaning shop. I only worked about 10 hours a week, but it gave me enough money to buy car models, kites and my first guitar. The lessons learned about the work ethic, value and self-esteem have stayed with me.
Now I am a successful business owner. I’m in a position to give a 15- or 16-year-old an afternoon job of sweeping the floor or running errands, but because of minimum wages and labor laws I can’t. All of you do-gooder liberals have put him out on the street every day after school, where he learns the finer points of carjacking and drug peddling. And when you finally realize what you have done, you don’t undo it, you toss him a basketball.
WARREN H. RAABE
Lakewood