The Right's Anti-Minimum Wage Arguments Have Pretty Much Stayed the Same for 80 Years

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33502-the-rights-anti-minimum-wage-arguments-have-pretty-much-stayed-the-same-for-80-years

Just like today, 1930s conservatives warned that those at the bottom of the ladder would be hurt most by a minimum wage. Guy L. Harrington of the National Publishers’ Association warned the imposition of a minimum wage would “throw all substandard or marginal workers out of employment as a burden to society,” while Battle presented letters from two different businesses claiming low-skill workers – or “those who are not sufficiently competent to earn their pay” – would quickly lose their jobs once the law was passed. A number of those testifying, such Noel Sargent of NAM, even argued that the bill would “make the next depression worse than would otherwise be the case.”

Today, it’s also not unusual to hear conservatives warning that a hike in the minimum wage will simply lead businesses to replace flesh and blood workers with those made from metal and wire, like sushi-making machines or “burger-flipping robots” that can do the job of unskilled workers for a fraction of the cost. This was also a claim made by those opposed to the FLSA. The manager of one Louisiana lumber company claimed that while the low cost of living in the South meant employers hadn’t resorted to “labor-saving machinery” thus far, wage increases beyond a certain point would force them into doing so and “eliminating over half of [their] men.” Meanwhile, the Underwear Institute warned that this and other laws were pushing up the cost of labor which would lead to “increased use of machinery with the effect of displacing manpower.”

[Fuddnik]

1. Ad still just as wrong now as they were then.