Inflation

Looks like the federal government has increased the minimum wage. Know what that means? More money in my pocket. At least for now. Inflation will, of course, pick up the slack, and, in a month or so, it will mean less money in my pocket. Actually, I haven't worked for minimum wage in an awfully long time. This won't affect my paycheck until after my employers look at the inflation caused by raising the minimum wage and decide to increase my pay accordingly.

I find it somewhat humorous that the Washington Post quotes a Raleigh, NC waitress as applauding the increase, and criticising the Republican Party for blocking the increase for so long. Why is that humorous? Two reasons: First, as a food service worker who gets tips presumably based on her performance (I say presumably because some people feel obligated to leave a tip whether they were satisfied with their service or not, while other people don't leave a tip at all, no matter how good the service was), her minimum wage is considerably less than the rest of us. The federally mandated minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.13 per hour. Second, because the state of North Carolina already has a higher minimum wage legislated at the state level than the federal government's new minimum anyway (a tipped employee in the state of North Carolina is entitled to at least $2.43 per hour).

The bottom line is, people who are at or near minimum wage always look at it as a good thing when the minimum wage goes up, and, in all fairness, for them it is, at least in the short term. What they don't see is that, in the long term, since people making low wages just got a government mandated pay raise across the board, the costs of doing business also go up. Do you really think that large corporations are going to take a big chunk of their profits and give it to the people who stack boxes or clean the toilets? No, of course not; they're going to raise prices to make up for the extra money that they now must give to their lower tier workers. Do you really think that anything you buy doesn't have some minimum wage employees in the chain of delivery somewhere? So as wages go up, prices go up, which means that inflation has wiped out whatever extra money you just earned.

I do understand: Having the minimum wage increased feels like a raise, especially if you're actually working for minimum wage. Having extra money in your pocket makes you feel better, until you get to the store and find out that you can't buy any more than you could before. Then you want another raise...

To some extent, that's common to us all: I often wish that I was making enough money to support myself in the manner in which I would like to become accustomed, but whenever I get a raise, my lifestyle desires suddenly become more expensive. Trying to make up the difference by earning more money just makes you want more things. We, as a people need to learn to live with less than what we want, or maybe just train ourselves to want less. Something like that.

In other news, the quote of the week: "Everyone should be angry." I know I'm angry. It amazes me that some people think that they are, or the church is, exempt from the laws of this country. There are times when the law of God supersedes the laws of man, but this is not one of those times. "Oh, she shouldn't have to be separated from her son." Nobody's telling her that she should be separated from her son (that would be child abandonment, wouldn't it?). She should take her son with her, and then use her son's citizenship to try to get a visa to come to the United States legally. I understand that Jesus commanded us to be good neighbors, and we should be. Surely one of the many kind people that she has interacted with during her illegal stay would have enough compassion to be willing to sponsor her for a visa. That would be a neighborly thing to do--helping her break the law is not.