Learn a Skill, Earn a Raise

This was originally posted on PoodleRose on August 16, 2013. Comments have not been migrated.

Last week, fast food workers walked off the job is cities across the nation, demanding a raise to $15 an hour and more hours. What they don’t realize is, if their demands are met, they will soon be out of a job. (There is talk in Congress of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.)

A raise to $15 an hour would double the wage of the typical fast food worker. That cost would be passed on to consumers in the form of significantly higher prices for their favorite tacos, burgers, and chicken. How many are going to be willing to pay 50 percent, 60 percent, 70 percent more for fast food? Would you?

But this is only part of the story. ObamaCare requires employers to provide health benefits to employees who work more than thirty hours per week. So, if fast food restaurants–which typically do not offer health benefits–expands the hours of employees, they will incur another significant cost.

The solution to the low pay offered by fast food restaurants isn’t using government to coerce the businesses into paying more. All that will do is destroy jobs and raise prices for consumers. The solution is for workers to learn better skills–skills that employers are willing to voluntarily pay more for.

If the fast food workers went into their manager’s office with a gun and demanded his money, we’d recognize the action as theft. That does not change if government acts as his proxy.