Better Wages, Better Pizza

I'm going to give, for once, a shred of credit to Chuck Schumer and the Democrats.  Don't get too excited; it isn't a lot and barely deserved.

So in the past few days, they came up with a new tagline for their platform, which believe it or not, is not just "Resist until the other side screams."  I don't recall it exactly, but it was "Better wages, better jobs, ..." better something-or-other, but I forgot what.  I'm sure it wasn't "... better pizza -- Papa John's", but I feel that "old" Papa John Schnatter is doing a bit better in sales this week thanks to the Democrats.

At any rate, the credit I give them is because for the first time since November 8th, organized Democrats have been speaking about an actual issue, not that they have a solution.  So bully for Uncle Chuck, who also did say something about the fact that Democrats have to say they're for something, and asked what they did wrong in 2016 (i.e., admitting that they, in fact, did).

Words have meaning, however.

And I thought it interesting to see the line "better wages" and ask myself what manner of solution they were going to propose to get any of that done.  You see, you can't just snap your fingers and wages rise.  After all, wages are set, absent external meddling, based on the value that an employee provides to the employer.

So if you're going to promote higher wages, you have to raise the value that employees provide, because if you artificially raise them (q.v. "minimum wage"), you are tampering with the value proposition.  If you tamper with the value proposition, employers will react to realign wages with value, by doing things such as hiring only people capable of doing multiple tasks and having three people do the work of four -- so that each employee now brings the value for which they're paid.

In other words, "Better wages, better jobs, fewer people working."

So I do wonder what Uncle Chuck and his troops have in mind.  Since they're leftists, and since they're only concerned about power and winning elections (otherwise they wouldn't promote solutions that don't work, e.g., Obamacare), we can expect that they will jump right into some kind of pandering action.  Perhaps a hike in the Federal minimum wage, since the unemployment rate is too good right now.

Of course, since the typical response by the economy to a minimum wage hike is to cut jobs, and since union jobs will be at least some of those cut, the AFL/CIO may not support that too vocally.

Ooh, ooh -- training.  Yeah, that's the thing.  We'll train people so they can do better jobs.

Sure we will.  Who is this "we" of which you speak?  Who is paying for that training?  What jobs are we training people for?  Who decides that?  If the jobs are in North Dakota oil fields, where are you training the people, and will they be required to move as the price of accepting taxpayer-paid job training?

And who are we training?  I mean, I have no issue with training, although it is completely outside the scope of the Federal government.  But would a Democrat program require people trained to have a job in 90 days or lose the right to welfare or unemployment benefits?  Would it require a repayment to the Federal government for all that training -- if you're going to take the training, don't you need to pay the taxpayer back?  I'd be OK with that, call it a "student loan."

I don't expect to see that kind of discussion when the Democrats put out their plans.  But I hope the press is at least marginally critical and asks that sort of question if they are ever allowed to ask questions.

Maybe Schumer will put ropes around him to keep out the press questions.  Worked for Hillary, didn't it?

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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