An Idea Conservatives Should Love - Raising the Minimum Wage
There is a magnificent public policy that achieves many of the goals conservative politicians regularly extol. These include promoting work over dependency, reducing the cost of social welfare programs, fostering economic growth and strengthening families.
The policy in question is raising the minimum wage. The only mystery is why so few conservative politicians see the issue this way. Rank-and-file conservatives know better. A December Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 53 percent of self-described conservatives supported a minimum-wage increase. Republican politicians who are so solicitous of conservative opinion need to follow the moral and practical intuitions of those they say they represent.
One conservative, at least, is speaking for this majority. Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley millionaire and one-time Republican candidate for governor of California, is championing an initiative to raise his state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour. His reasons are thoroughly in keeping with his ideology.
“One of the strange things in our society right now is that we have all these low-wage workers who are getting $7.50, $8 or $9 an hour,” Unz says, “and because they earn such small wages, the government subsidizes them with billions or tens of billions of dollars of social welfare spending that comes from the taxpayer. It’s a classic example of businesses privatizing the benefits of their workers while socializing the costs.”
http://www.nationalmemo.com/idea-conservatives-love/
I think Mr. Unz hit on the reason that conservatives oppose raising the minimum wages.
"It’s a classic example of businesses privatizing the benefits of their workers while socializing the costs.” Which means more private profits even if it increases government spending.
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