Paul Sassone

For quite a while you couldn’t read a newspaper or watch news on TV without hearing about raising the minimum wage.

It was THE hot topic.

I can’t remember the last time I read or heard about the minimum wage, either raising or lowering it.

Republicans now control the presidency, both houses of Congress and now the Supreme Court. So, it is my hunch is it will be a long time before the federal government takes up the issue of the minimum wage, or wages at all.

Conservatives are happy with wages as they are. In fact, Congress hasn’t raised the minimum wage since 1997.

The argument for not raising the minimum wage goes like this: Raising the minimum wage is actually bad for workers. When the minimum wage goes up employers don’t hire people, and that hurts workers.

There’s an assumption here that because the minimum wage is low employers hire workers they actually don’t need. A charitable impulse of sorts?

But what savvy business owner would do that, cut into profits to hire unnecessary workers?

If we accept this argument, there is a certain logic to it all: The lower the wages, the more workers employers can hire for the same amount of money.

So, the answer to really help workers is obvious.

If increasing the minimum wage reduces the number of jobs, then pay workers nothing and there will be jobs for everyone.

But, don’t get excited one way or the other.

Under the present administration wage adjustments are less likely to surface than a new Trump fashion line.

–Talk of raising minimum wage growing silent–