Min Wage

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Renowned economist Robert Lucas is opposed to the law and reflected the opinion of the majority of his fellow conservative economists, “Everyone knows that if you raise the minimum wage, several low wage jobs will be cut. It’s a fact that companies hire thousands of unnecessary employees out of the goodness of their heart simply because they can afford it.

“But now they will have to downsize those employees making $5.85/hour. Meanwhile, those making say, $6.15/hour will be bumped up to $6.55/hour. That’s a $3 increase per day! It’s a case of the richest poor people getting richer and the poorest poor people getting poorer. Disgraceful.”

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott shared a similar opinion, “Of course, we hired hundreds of thousands of employees that we didn’t need simply because we could afford it. I don’t even think most of them even came into work. We just paid them because we could. But now that the minimum wage has been raised, it means that we’ll have to let all these employees go. The government is really sticking it to these poor bastards.”

But the wage hike isn’t only affecting the benevolence of large corporations like Wal-Mart. Minimum wage employees now making more money are also feeling the sting of their increased earnings.

Joe Watson used to be happy working his minimum wage job as a janitor for a mid-sized manufacturing company. But now that his rate has increased, he finds himself unhappy.

“It was great when I was making the old minimum wage,” said Watson. “I’d come into work late, take long lunch breaks, tell my boss to go fuck himself. I mean, what were they going to do? They were paying me 5 bucks and hour. But ever since they started paying me that extra 70 cents, they’ve really been tough.

“They’ve taken away bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, holidays. And they reduced our medical coverage from a first aid kit and a bottle of Aspirin to a tourniquet and a bottle of Flintstones vitamins. But really I can't complain. Nationally it's still one of the better HMO's.”

And overall Watson understood the difficulty that the company was going through, “Hey, I feel their pain. It must be tough. They have to make cutbacks somewhere to make up for that extra 70 cents.”

Indeed, Watson is one of the lucky ones. Most companies are making even tougher cuts, cutting minimum wage workers rather than paying them an extra 70 cents. It's been tough on the businesses to part with their employees, but they're seeing it as a chance to help even more impoverished workers.

“Frankly, it feels great to give back. Now we can help twice as many struggling workers as we did before,” said Leo Scott. “After all, we only have to pay illegals $3/hour.”

Cash-strapped CEO's nationwide have been cruelly forced to withhold upgrades to their yachts as they bear the brunt of the 70 cent minimum wage hike.

Businesses Fire Millions of Useless Employees As Minimum Wage Is Raised

By MILT ASHTON

WASHINGTON—Feeling the sting of the Congress-imposed minimum wage hike, several American businesses fired millions of useless employees on Thursday. In January of 2007 Congress voted to increase the minimum wage to $7.25 by the year 2009 and this week's jump to $6.55 was the second of three incremental increases.

It is estimated that between four and five million superfluous workers were let go last week as a result of Congress’s socialized minimum wage program that forces American companies to pay their employees hourly wages equal to that of a cup of Starbucks coffee.