Do Minimum Wage Workers Deserve $50 An Hour?

(00:01.26)

Minimum wage malarkey. Yeah. Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary nominee said that he would not support raising the minimum wage.

Bernie Sanders, none too happy. He introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 because he wants to implement a living wage. Again, the federal minimum wage is $7.25.

What do you got about 30 states and cities out there that have increased the minimum wage? About 30 million Americans were paid less than $15 per hour. no. Anyway, how many people out there raise your hand if you had minimum wage jobs? I’ve had a few. I’ve had a few. I was thinking about one today.

On the weekends, the weekends, there was a German restaurant in our town of Gilderlin, New York. It was called the Bavarian Chalet. It’s a German restaurant, and it was also a catering hall as well. And on the weekends, Friday night, Saturday nights, my buddies and I, many of us, worked there when we were young. We were young. I mean, we were

(01:46.862)

middle school, none of us could drive. None of us could drive. I remember the scrubbing these massive pots and pans for the kitchen, they these weddings that were going on and all these catering events. And I used to get soaked. And I remember the cooks and the chefs, make fun of me. I remember they brought me in one of the, like a pair of a scuba mask. I was doing it. But yeah, I mean, we washed dishes, did that. And again, we

minimum wage. was minimum wage job. Do you think that that Bavarian, Chalet, do you think that they would have been able to make it or be successful at the time if they had to pay everybody a living wage?

Again, I’m glad I did the job.

I’m I’m glad we, I did, it was, was a, you know, we have there at my buddies, we made some extra money, laughed, had a good time. You learned a thing or two, again, you know, coming, even when I, extra jobs when I came home from college, working at the food court, at the mall, mean, plenty of minimum wage jobs. Not every job is there to provide for you and your family.

living wage. You get these leftists out there like, okay, you’re supposed to, you know, get a starting position. You know, you’re working the counter at McDonald’s and you’re going to raise a family of four or five on that. No, you’re not. No, no, no, you’re not. It’s just not the way it works. That’s entry level work. Entry level work means guess what? You’re getting in at the bottom and at that point in time, you probably shouldn’t have a wife or kids.

(03:45.068)

I’m just saying, again, I’m being honest, God forbid you get thrown into one of those positions. Get thrown into one of those as you lose your job, whatever it may be. You better be working two, three of those jobs to get by like many of us have in the past. And I’ve always gone to the old Louis Anderson from Coming to America, know, he’s pointing out to Akeem and Simi. I was like, you guys, now I’m on lettuce.

Next, I’m on fries. Then I make assistant manager and that’s when the big bucks start rolling in. Well, that’s just life. Minimum wage is, it’s joke, quite frankly. Again, there’s no company out there, no business out there that is going to pay, let’s say New York City, say give me New York City for, or even more, I’ll go with Tampa.

You think they’re paying $7.25 an hour? No, they’re not going to find the workers. They have to pay what the going rate is, what the competitive rate is for that job. And if the government declared in decreed, hey, you know what? We’re going to make minimum wage $50 an hour. We’re going to make minimum wage $100 an hour. What do you think would happen? Just use your head for a second. What would you think would happen? Well, you see a lot of self-checkout everywhere. That’s for darn sure.

companies would find ways around it.

That’s just the nature of the beast. You don’t want to price out entry level work. Entry level work is important. It’s vital.

(05:33.322)

It’s vital. The things that I had learned, again, you compound learning, various different work experiences, doing a myriad of different jobs, vital. Little things that you pick up on here and there, that’s what it’s there for. Why would you want those jobs to go away and be replaced by technology or self-checkout, whatever it may be? It makes no sense.

The entire concept of minimum wage is quite funny. It’s ridiculous.

It’s ridiculous. Employers have to compete for workers.

They have to compete for workers. they’re going to have to raise, then they’re going to pay what, again, what’s competitive in order to bring those workers in.

(06:26.714)

Starbucks, if there was no minimum wage, Starbucks can’t turn around and say, hey, we’re going to pay our baristas $5 an hour. They wouldn’t get any.

they’d be out of business. people, free market works every single time, it’s bloody tried. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.