Democrats (and some Republicans) in the U.S. House of Representatives today overwhelmingly passed a bill to increase the minimum wage for the U.S.  In doing so they believe they've helped the working poor.  What they apparently fail to realize is that they've more likely helped expand the working poor by placing more demands on the pockets of the people that pay wages.

I don't begrudge anyone a decent living, and I can't argue that the current minimum wage is one that I'd like to see anyone living off of, but I don't believe it's the responsibility of government -- both Federal or State -- to tell business owners what they have to pay their employees.

Employers should pay whatever is necessary to get labor to perform the necessary job functions, and employees should be paid whatever they are able to extract from employers for the work they perform.  It's simple supply and demand.  When employers are unable to attract skilled labor they pay more until they have enough potential employees in the work force pool.  And employees that want to earn more money typically find their way to more money by gaining skills in their field, or by cross-training or educating themselves on other skills.

It's not the responsibility of the Federal government to mandate that everyone in the country must be paid the same minimum wage.  After all, the talent pool in a place like South Dakota, West Texas, or Louisiana is completely different than that of urban New York, the suburbs around D.C., California, and other places with large urban populations.  With the Federal government poised to set the new minimum standard for everywhere in the U.S., does that imply that employers in those places that previously paid more should now pay less?

Actually, what this will wind up doing is what happened in an area that friends in another site I frequent recently described -- people that made more than the minimum wage previously see those below them on the pay scale getting huge increases and then they start demanding more so they can remain proportionately ahead of those same people.

These higher costs get added to the costs we all pay for goods and services we purchase, which winds up not helping the lower waged workers as their costs increase proportionately to eat up their new found wage increases.  And, in many cases, employers may wind up cutting positions to save on their costs, or at the very least cutting back on the number of hours that they use employees for.  Employees that worked 30 hours per week previously may find themselves working 20 hours instead, in effect running in place for the same wages that they previously took home.

Yup, the Democrats are helping the poor as best they can, by giving others a greater chance of joining the non-working poor as they find fewer jobs available to them.  Great job Dems.