Minimum wage criticism is a joke

I guess some union types are going to be striking to protest low wages at fast food joints.

Let provide some information on the minimum wage.

I have a client who owns a number of fast food restaurants. I just finished the payroll on one of those restaurants. I won't name the franchise specifically. Let's just say that their spokesman is a guy named Jared.

In that restaurant, of the nine employees four are paid minimum wage. It was five last week. But one of the employees, I'll call him Ryan (a teenager), showed he had some meddle and got bumped to $8.00/hr.

Now that's not a lot of money. IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE.

See, that minimum wage got Ryan in the door. Ryan proved himself and got a bump in pay less than 30 days after he started.

My guess is, Ryan does some crazy shit. He probably comes to work, ready to work; meaning he's clean, on time and has a good attitude. Things that used to be a given, now they're called a skill.

He probably showed some interest in learning and moving up, to make more money.

My guess is that within the next thirty days, Ryan will either get another raise, or he will quit for a better opportunity. It's the way the economic ladder works.

Unfortunately, when you make the first rung of that ladder even higher for those first jobs, you limit opportunities for people to get on the first rung and start to move up.

Again, those opportunities won't limit people with "connections" as Kanye West would say. It hurts the people who don't.

If you are a college graduate and can't get your arms around that, you probably failed econ 101, if you took it at all. In which case you probably don't have the skills to work anywhere.