Well, this report by WTNH TV says a lot.
Reporter Jeff Valin interviews Alesha Fuller. Fuller is among the fast food workers striking to get their pay raised to $15 per hour. Why $15? Why not $20? Or $30? The level they’re demanding is arbitrary.
Valin asks the single mom, “How much of a difference would it be to make $15 an hour for you?”
Fuller replies, “That would be a major difference. I will get a lot, a lot of things done that I really need done right now. And that $15 an hour, that would mean I would have to work a little less days instead of every day, all day.”
You mean, like the rest of us?
At this point, I’ll turn and deliver the Boring Guy’s Minimum Wage Anecdote. In my junior year of college I was working a minimum wage job at a radio station when Congress hiked the minimum wage. Like most small market stations, ours existed on a tight budget. When the minimum wage got hiked, I survived and got a tiny pay raise but management fired several staff. They just couldn’t afford to keep as many of us around. It wasn’t management’s fault. This happens every time the minimum wage gets hiked.
There wasn’t any less work to do, by the way. There were just fewer people around to do the work we still had to do. I ended up picking up a few more hours, not less.
Fuller might be shocked to find out which side of the firing line she’ll be on if her demands are met. But if those demands are met, there will be a firing line.
Reminder: Technology can replace those who price themselves out of jobs.
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