I don’t want more money.
Yes, Michigan legislature, that’s correct. I’m a college student. An English major. An aspiring journalist with little hope of ever making big money. In addition, I currently work a minimum-wage job. I even come from Massachusetts, where, until this summer, our minimum wage was $.60 higher than yours and coming to college meant a pay cut.
I’m precisely the kind of person you thought would praise you for giving me a raise. But the joke is on you.
I should be transparent and confess that, when my boss first told me I’d be making $8.15 instead of $7.40 an hour, my heart fluttered and I saw dollar signs.
It was my first day back at my terrific on-campus job. I’m part of Hillsdale College’s not-so-famous “campus beautification crew.” The crew grows, plants, and nurtures the landscaping all over campus.
I was rambling to my boss about couponing and budgeting when she told me that Michigan’s minimum wage increased, so I was getting a raise. It won’t affect my campus newspaper job, but a raise for the eight hours a week I spend beautifying campus adds $6 to my paycheck.
Sure, that doesn’t seem like much, but I was initially ecstatic. It occurred to me that perhaps next time I’m dying for a coffee, I could justify that $1.50.
But then my coworker piped up.
“Yeah, but now tuition is going to go up,” she muttered.
Cue falling rain, wrecking ball, and super-depressing music.
You see, that extra $96 a semester won’t do me much good if everything else around me costs more. Maybe Hillsdale won’t actually raise tuition that much, but what about grocery stores? Restaurants? Walgreens? Chances are that $.50 an hour will get eaten up by more expensive milk, burgers, and cough drops.
Forbes magazine reported the results of raising the minimum wage:
“Congress raised the minimum wage 10.6 percent in July, 2009. In the ensuing six months, nearly 600,000 teen jobs disappeared, even with nearly 4 percent growth in the economy, this compared to a loss of 250,000 jobs in the first half of the year as GDP growth declined by 4 percent. Why? When you raise the price of anything, people take less of it, including labor.”
That’s the problem with the minimum wage hike. It initially looks so good to those of us who save change and clip coupons and indulge ourselves on fresh fruit even though everything canned is much cheaper.
Why would someone like me turn down a decent raise?
When you promise me a higher wage, you suggest that I can purchase a bigger cable plan or a new phone or a Starbucks latte. Obama tells me some conservative folks want me to go without. That’s why they are so cruel and won’t raise the wage.
What you don’t tell me is that if it costs my college more to employ me, it is going to make cuts somewhere else. If it costs the local Kroger more to hire cashiers, either the food will cost more or the quality of it will decrease.
In Michigan, Kroger employs some 2,500-5,000 people. Let’s assume it has 2,000 full-time workers. The hike will cost the company more than $3 million more this year than last year. Where do you think Kroger will recoup that money? By growing a money tree?
No. They’ll add a few cents to my milk and hike the price of eggs. They’ll get cheaper produce with more spots and bangs and dings from a vendor with a lower price.
Best-case scenario, you think you look like heroes who improved my standard of living, when, in reality, my money has the same purchasing power it did before you scattered some fairy change in my paycheck.
Worst-case scenario, you devalued my money. Everything will cost more and my higher wage will mean nothing. You tried to fool me, but you failed.
Please, stop using us to make yourself look good. Stop trying to appear compassionate while playing political games. If you really want to give me more money, how about lowering taxes, or cutting back on regulations to make entrepreneurship more attractive? Those policies would actually help the people you claim to serve.