White teenage unemployment is about 14 percent. That for black teenagers is about 30 percent. The labor force participation rate for white teens is 37 percent, and that for black teens is 25 percent. Many years ago, in 1948, the figures were exactly the opposite. The unemployment rate of black 16-year-old and 17-year-old males was 9.4 percent, while that of whites was 10.2 percent. Up until the late 1950s, black teens, as well as black adults, were more active in the labor market than their white counterparts. I will return to these facts after I point out some elitist arrogance and moral bankruptcy.
Supporters of a $15 minimum wage are now admitting that there will be job losses. "Why shouldn't we in fact accept job loss?" asks New School economics and urban policy professor David Howell, adding, "What's so bad about getting rid of crappy jobs, forcing employers to upgrade, and having a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed by that?" Economic Policy Institute economist David Cooper says: "It could be that they spend more time unemployed, but their income is higher overall. If you were to tell me I could work fewer hours and make as much or more than I could have previously, that would be OK."
What's a "crappy job"? My guess is that many of my friends and I held the jobs Howell is talking about as teenagers during the late 1940s and '50s. During summers, we arose early to board farm trucks to New Jersey to pick blueberries. I washed dishes and mopped floors at Philadelphia's Horn & Hardart restaurant, helped unload trucks at Campbell Soup, shoveled snow, swept out stores, delivered packages and did similar low-skill, low-wage jobs. If today's arrogant elite were around to destroy these jobs through wage legislation and regulation, I doubt whether I and many other black youths would have learned the habits of work that laid the foundation for future success. Today's elite have little taste for my stepfather's admonition: Any kind of a job is better than begging and stealing.
What's so tragic about all of this is that black leadership buys into it. What the liberals have in mind when they say there should be "a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed" is that people who are thrown out of work should be given welfare or some other handout to make them whole. This experimentation with minimum wages on the livelihoods of low-skilled workers is ethically atrocious.
http://townhall.com/columnists/walt...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Elitist Arrogance
Discussion in 'News & Current Events' started by Revmitchell, Jun 1, 2016.
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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STUPID.
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Crabtownboy Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
There is a big problem in this country. You cannot get hardly anyone, other than illegal aliens, to take "crappy jobs" at any wage. That is one reason there are so many illegal aliens in this country working at those jobs. A local newspaper conducted an intensive investigation several years ago. Their finding was that over 60% lawn services, restaurants and home cleaning services would be forced to close if all illegal aliens were sent home. In general citizens will not work at those jobs. I could not get any teenager in my neighborhood to mow my lawn while I was to be away for six weeks. I hired a legal alien who was very happy to get the job. He did a great job.
My first job was thinning peaches and my second job was picking the peaches left to ripen. -
So when the social safety net allows a person to have a 45K per year lifestyle, then they don't want to take a 30K per year job? Ya don't say.
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It'd be nice to discuss what you actually found stupid or erroneous with the article, or if you provided some information to show that the article is in error; you know, actually debate the merits of the post.
That may be too much to ask. -
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Better?:Biggrin -
Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
I was mowing lawns and running two paper routs by the time I was 12. At thirteen I was working at the local newspaper after school and on weekends at minimum wage (2.70 hr). Making my own money at that age taught me work ethics and faithfulness. Today kids that age cannot get hired. These so called work regulations by libs do nothing more than push people out of work.
Just ask the coal miners. Liberals do nothing but cause misery, entrapment, bondage, and victimization. -
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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