In a resounding defeat for teenagers all across the state last week, the Iowa House of Representatives defeated a measure to increase our state’s minimum wage. Democrats are claiming the average working Iowan will be working harder next year for the same amount of money:
But, having put politics ahead of public policy, they [those that voted against increasing the minimum wage] will probably fail to mention that they were also the ones responsible for keeping low-wage Iowa workers from being rewarded for their hard work again this year. –written statement by House Democratic leader, Pat Murphy.
Um, no actually that is untrue. I know political rhetoric makes for great sound bites, but lets try and keep a little truth in our comments, shall we?
The facts:
Only 7% of Iowa workers are a single parent or single earner in a couple with kids.
The average wage [minus the “minimum” tag] in Iowa was $15.10 in 2004 or up 5% over 2003.
So, let take those statistics along with Pat Murphy’s comments and feed them into our handy dandy common sense machine and see what it spits out…
The Democrat statement should have read something like this:
Due to the fact the free market system is working, the government will continue to keep its’ hands out of the private sector. The average worker in Iowa is making $15.10 per hour, which is an increase over the previous year, thus proving the minimum wage is nothing more than a cheap stunt by which to improve our image with the state’s unions.
Further more, as only 7% of our entire population is earning the minimum wage, we feel the business sector has been doing an admirable job of compensating Iowa workers for the jobs they do.
Who the hell works for $5.15 an hour? For crimney sakes man, Mickey D’s starts a burger flipper out at about $7 an hour. Going out on a limb here, but perhaps the 7% of workers making $5.15 are so utterly inept they do not warrant more than five bucks an hour.
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