Right wing loopy logic: The minimum wage causes MORE dependency!

[alp227]

Last edited Sun Jun 2, 2013, 01:46 AM - Edit history (1)

Another local paper editorial "Obama's minimum wage increase would reduce record income inequality" attracted the right wing authoritarian talking points generator in the comments section, the top comment including THIS crazy one with the loopiest of sentences in bold:

"You are paid by the skill set that you have, not by what society deems acceptable. If that were the case all of the unemployed and fast food employees would not settle for anything less than the CEO makes. Making the low skilled entitled only makes them more dependent and more entitled. GET a SKILL SET that is marketable. Employers owe you nothing unless you can deliver."

Because this editorial was from last week it's not worth posting a comment directly there anymore as I sometimes have in the past (as I have here and here).

But MAN OH MAN so much patronizing and ignorance going on in this comment. Sadly, thanks to Fox so-called News and the Conservative Fraudcasting Network (stole this from another recent thread...use the search box) this "just be a good worker" mindset exists even among modern working-class Americans who unlike workers from earlier generations lack the courage or knowledge to stand up and organize.

And calling a living wage an "entitlement" that causes workers to be "more dependent and more entitled"? Sure, the minimum wage workers at Wal-Mart truly are rugged individual patriots too proud to take a penny of that WELFARE money, right?

Wrong. There is such a thing as Wal-Fare, where workers for that company are the most likely to need Medicaid or food assistance. Plus, according to a PBS documentary, WM wages are "below the poverty line, with the majority of employees' children qualifying for free lunch at school."

And check out this UPenn law journal article about the struggles of low wage workers.

That's another one of those comments where I don't know whether laughing or shuddering is more appropriate.

Need I share more of what I saw from the RWTP Generator, some of which crossed the line to bigotry?

No other economic system has even come close to increasing the wealth of a broad range of people across all economic classes. Government directed economies are terribly inefficient and have proven so in many countries over many decades.

This conservative just did. Stop flooding the labor market with millions of illegal, working-class foreign workers and social welfare cases. Unfortunately the obsessive diversity fetish of MSM editorialists precludes recognition of this Econ 101 proposition.

The answer has been vomited repeatedly, tell the minimum wage income earners to stop reproducing ( that's children for the slow learners and uninformed) and live at home. Poor people should not reproduce.

OMFG, I wonder if the writer really believes the comment above or this comment is typical Internet Tough Guy bullshit. In a country like ours it is pretty damn scary to think your neighbors...not just random Internet Tough Guys from several states away...despise the poor this much.

Sad part is, a lot of young workers 18+ who can vote voted for the increase without realising they are going to screw themselves in the long run.

Government should look for ways to promote useful education and the value of individual self-improvement to make young people, and the economic laggards worth more in the labor market, instead of making them even dumber by a constant diet of Marxist propaganda. Regulating the value of unskilled labor never helped anyone except government bureaucrats whose worth largely depends on the need for public assistance.

WTF, so the government is regulating min wage to get more people on public assistance???

My friends, if you're wondering why Congress can't get anything done, it's because they're intimidated by the Idiocracy who shamelessly and publicly express their low level of knowledge.

(on edit) last month a guy called into thom hartmann and boasted about being a union scab who preferred "be(ing) a good worker" instead:

[Historic NY]

2. Conservative logic.....

never mind.

[brewens]

3. Lots of right-wing union workers probably agree with that. Never mind that

they are working what were once pretty close to slave labor jobs and make good money because, and only because of the labor movement. They consider themselves to be working class heroes and that mill could buy a chimpanzee to replace them if their union didn't prevent it.

[alp227]

4. See the video I added at the end of the post

to hear one such worker who boasts about being a scab cal in a liberal talk show.

[Colorado Rambler]

5. Reptilican dogma NEVER makes sense

As far as the Republicans are concerned, they oppose every last thing the govt does - especially if they see even the shadow of Obama on it. The minimum wage causes dependency, because all those workers come to count on making the minimum wage every paycheck when employers should be allowed to pay as little as they can get away with. If this was a REAL democracy, workers would quickly learn that they might get a pay cut to $2.00/hour instead of the exorbitant $7.30 or so from the evil, economy destroying minimum wage. Nothing makes workers toe the line like uncertainty about their income.

Bottom line, Republicans have no understanding of what constitutes a civilized society or the importance of the social contract. They are extremely xenophobic (a nice word for "racist&quot , close minded and unable to cope with the changes in US society and racial mix which has occurred over the past 30 years or so. They view people earning minimum wage or those on "entitlement" programs as either black or brown with a few white welfare cheats thrown in. They are enraged that their tax money may go to help out a black person and even more enraged that a black man won a SECOND term as POTUS. There's no reasoning with the right, especially the tea party.

[Live and Learn]

6. Disgusting. If I hear one more time how CEO's work

hard and deserve their bonuses I will . This war on labor has got to stop!

[GaYellowDawg]

7. Well, it's not any stupider than

The threads downing CPR and emergency treatment on a website supporting a party that's supposed to be devoted to universal health care.

The OP is right. The idea that a higher minimum wage promotes dependency is stupid. Yeah, because no one's dependent on, oh, a freaking paycheck. All right, so that might be a little stupider than the CPR-haters on DU.

[Historic NY]

8. Be a good worker what is that guy a communist.