If you ever wonder what terrible direction Democrats want to take the country, all you need to do is look to California. In this case, it comes with the economic destruction of massive minimum wage hikes.
The candidates running for U.S. Senate in California are relitigating the minimum wage. California is jacking up the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour, a move that is already getting people fired before the hike goes into effect in April. The hike also has fast-food companies raising their prices, meaning that even the workers who will benefit from this wage hike will have their purchasing power diluted thanks to further price inflation. There are no winners here but the Democratic politicians who think they just solved poverty.
Why not make it worse? That unofficial motto of California is guiding further debate on the minimum wage, with only Republican Steve Garvey serving as the voice of reason. Leading Democratic candidate Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is on board with the $20 minimum wage, while the fading Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) wants California’s minimum bumped up to $25 and the federal minimum wage increased to $20.
Both pale in comparison to another House Democrat running for the Senate. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) wants a $50-per-hour federal minimum wage, telling people to “just do that math” and that this would solve California’s affordability problems. Of course, when every fast food restaurant and small business either goes bankrupt or fires every single employee and replaces them with machines because they can’t afford to pay workers, it isn’t clear for whom anything will be more affordable. But shooting California residents in the foot and telling them it’s for their own benefit is the California way.
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The Congressional Budget Office projected that a $15 federal minimum wage would lift almost 1 million people out of poverty but send 1.4 million into unemployment. Just imagine how drastically that unemployment number would rise at a $20- or $25-per-hour minimum while driving down how many would be lifted out of poverty because their jobs would be eliminated to save money. That is before you even get to Lee’s fantasyland proposal of $50 an hour.
This is where the Democratic Party wants to drag the country. President Joe Biden made California the model for his administration, and California Democrats are prominent among party leadership with Vice President Kamala Harris and future presidential candidate Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). Economically insane policy proposals like this do not just stay in California, meaning conservatives should not just treat this as the silly sideshow it appears to be on the surface.