Tom McClintock Says Stupid Things About The Minimum Wage

What the GOP wants is no minimum wage at all, but if people insist on one they should at least be grateful for what they have now and not seek more. McClintock isn't as obnoxious as Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who advises the swarthy rabble to be grateful for the current minimum wage. She condescendingly tells of being happy as a teenager making $2.15 an hour. (I would have been happy too: minimum wage in 1970 was $1.60 an hour.)

Stupid McClintock:

Only [raise the minimum wage] if you want to rip the first rung in the ladder of opportunity for teenagers, for minorities, for people who are trying to get into the job market for their first job.

The minimum wage doesn't support a family. We all know that. It’s not supposed to support a family. The minimum wage is that first job when you have no skills, no experience, no working history. That’s how you get into the job market, that’s how you develop that experience, develop that work record, get your first raise, then your next raise, then your promotion. That's the first rung of opportunity.

If your labor as an unskilled person just entering the workforce is worth say $7 an hour at a job and the minimum wage is $10, you have just been made permanently unemployable. That first rung of the economic ladder has been ripped out and you can’t get on it. That is a tragedy.