Readers React: The GOP hits Americans’ pocketbooks

Re “GOP blocks minimum wage hike in Senate,” Business, May 1, and “Politics vs. the minimum wage,” Editorial, April 29

The standard GOP argument against boosting the federal minimum wage is that doing so would result in fewer jobs.

Normally, this type of argument makes economic sense. But as far as low-paid labor is concerned, don’t you think that if an employer could get by with fewer employees, he would have done so already? Thus, the main effect of a higher minimum wage would simply be to pump more money into the economy, a goal both parties should embrace.

So why doesn’t the GOP? Maybe because it just wants to make President Obama look bad.

Gary Brown

Laguna Hills

The Times’ editorial supporting a minimum-wage hike is very likely welcome in many other countries like Mexico.

One sure way to lose more jobs here is to make it more expensive and harder for U.S. companies to compete for customers.

Dick Ettington

Palos Verdes

Has Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) — who said that today’s minimum-wage earners “don’t know how to interrupt their texting to wait on a customer,” implying they are young slackers — even gone to a McDonald’s in the last 10 years?

Few of the workers there are under 30 years old. Some are single mothers working 48 hours a week who still can’t make ends meet because they are earning the minimum wage.

Enzi should get real: Plenty of the workers earning such a wage can’t even afford a phone to text with.

Elle Derek

San Pedro