Yet another former Republican breaks ranks. Just wait for the fringe-right* to go after him like they did Munger.
'Conservative Leads Effort to Raise Minimum Wage in California'
Hmm:
Conservative Leads Effort to Raise Minimum Wage in California, by Jennifer Medina, NY Times: Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley millionaire, rose to fame by promoting a ballot initiative that essentially eliminated bilingual education in California. He went on to become publisher of The American Conservative, a libertarian-leaning magazine.
But after decades in the conservative movement, Mr. Unz is pursuing a goal that has stymied liberals: raising the minimum wage. He plans to pour his own money into a ballot measure to increase the minimum wage in California to $10 an hour in 2015 and $12 in 2016, which would make it by far the highest in the nation. Currently, it is $8 — 75 cents higher than the federal minimum.
Using what he sees as conservative principles to advocate a policy long championed by the left, Mr. Unz argues that significantly raising the minimum wage would help curb government spending on social services, strengthen the economy and make more jobs attractive to American-born workers.
“There are so many very low-wage workers, and we pay for huge social welfare programs for them,” he said in an interview. “This would save something on the order of tens of billions of dollars. Doesn’t it make more sense for employers to pay their workers than the government?”
yrs,
rubato
*"Fringe-right" is the chairman of the Calif. State GOP.
Minimum wage here in Alberta is $9.95/hr right now, but you'd be hard pressed to find a business paying that. You can get a McJob here starting at $11.00/hr or more. Does not seem to be hurting our economy.
Personally, I don’t believe in bros before hoes, or hoes before bros. There needs to be a balance. A homie-hoe-stasis, if you will.
Sure Dave, because businesses don't hire someone because they need the job done, they hire them only because they want to spread the wealth around and don't really care if the job is done or not. Now that the minimum wage is climbing, they'll just stop their charity of paying people for jobs that aren't needed.
Unz is making the same argument I have made here for years: When you allow employers to pay less than the cost of sustaining someone you are merely shifting those costs to someone else. Unz is focusing on the public social welfare angle but when those costs are borne by other family members it merely spreads and deepens poverty.
WalMart is notorious for putting their own employees on public assistance to subsidise their business model.
