Thursday, August 27, 2015

'Black Lives Matter' Activist Opposes Minimum Wage Hike

A St Louis alderman who appears to have a good gut instinct recognition of the problem with minimum wage laws (via WaPo)
[I]n St. Louis, a small fracture appeared Wednesday when Democratic Alderman Antonio French — who came to national prominence during the protests, has supported Black Lives Matter and sees himself as a mediator between residents and the police — published an editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explaining his opposition to a measure that would raise the city’s minimum wage to $11 by 2018. Doing so, he argued, could send what few jobs exist in the community out to St. Louis County, which has given no indication it’s willing to raise its own wage floor.

"In my neighborhood, when I look at the young guys, black males, unemployment is close to 50 percent,” French said in an interview. “For me, my main interest is to get people to work.”

That puts him at odds with some constituents, like Ashli Bolden, a community organizer with Missouri Jobs with Justice who lives in French’s ward.

“He’s screaming black lives matter, but we don’t deserve higher wages?” Bolden says. She’s noticed plenty of low-wage employers opening in the area, and thinks they could afford to pay more. “I can’t see these Family Dollars moving to the county because of a wage increase.”

5 comments:

  1. It's always easiest to be generous with other people's money.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I always get a chuckle when a typical product of gov't schools gives their opinion on running a business:

    “I can’t see these Family Dollars moving to the county because of a wage increase.”

    Bottom-of-the-barrel discount chains like Family Dollar have the thinnest margins and would be the hardest hit by a minimum wage hike, since they can't raise prices to compensate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Broken clocks are right twice a day

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why is it that people that claim to care about low paid workers never talk about how they're going to create jobs with their own capital that pay these people what they feel others should be forced to pay them? I get it. It's easier to care about things that don't cost you anything yourself. The FSA marches on.

    ReplyDelete
  5. “I can’t see these Family Dollars moving to the county because of a wage increase.”

    That's correct, they'll just close down.

    ReplyDelete