The Seen and the Unseen

Florida will be voting on a potential minimum wage increase this year. Not surprisingly, a majority of Floridians appear to support the amendment. It sounds great on the surface to most people: Why not give those barely making ends meet a boost in their paycheck? In reality, however, it hurts the very people it aims to help.

If you've ever read Economics in One Lesson, you'll know about the "seen and the unseen". What we SEE are the fortunate few who get a larger paycheck. But what you don't see are the many who don't get hired. This is far more devastating overall. This in turn causes massive unemployment to low and unskilled people. This in turn causes government to create more programs to help these people that "capitalism" has kicked to the curb. It's an endless cycle.

My first "job" at 12-13 years old was delivering a weekly newspaper (back when people needed a printed TV guide...yes I'm that old!). I learned valuable lessons during that time. I had to wake up early, prep the papers and bag them if it was rainy/snowy, ask my customers where they would like their paper placed in order to satisfy their needs, etc. I also learned that good service would result in extra tips! My fires "real" job was bagging groceries. These jobs help build up a resume and learn to be responsible with my time. All of these valuable lessons helped prepare me for bigger and better things.

Beyond that, why would I want government (at the point of a gun) to prevent two parties from voluntarily reaching an agreement? Each individual knows what is best for themselves. It's arrogant to think otherwise.

This law will also phase in the increases over the next 5 years. If this is such a great benefit, why not implement it right away? Because the negative implications would more easily be attributed to this law. Instead, the pain will get spread out over 5-6 years and give politicians enough time to come up with other explanations and the public will soon forget. Then we'll get told that the "free market has failed". 🙄

Why not $50/hour? or $100/hour? Wouldn't that be better? The same problems a $100/hour wage would cause are the same problems a $15/hour wage would cause (just on a smaller scale).

I'll apologize up front as to how cheesy this sounds, but it's true: Once you "see" the unseen, it can't be unseen.