Speaking from Experience

The cynicism in Washington DC has now reached epic proportions as President Obama pushes for an increase in the minimum wage to $9 an hour while making job creation the focal point of his second term agenda!
How President Obama intends to increase jobs by raising entry-level wages during a weak economic recovery shrouded in sequestration fears is beyond me.
Whenever the minimum wage has been increased, we’ve seen a decline in entry-level jobs, a reduction in hours for workers, and an increase in what I call dinosaur jobs. Dinosaur jobs are those that cease to exist once their value is exceeded by their worth due to increased labor costs. Those jobs are usually replaced by technology. ATM machines replaced bank tellers, at-the-pump credit card scanners replaced gas station attendants, automatic hotel room card kiosks replaced hotel clerks, and pick-your-own farms are now replacing young, seasonal workers. Or, as many workers experienced right here in Niles, automatic folding machines replaced Simplicity Pattern employees by the thousands.
Did I mention the employer mandate for health insurance coverage that begins in 2014? If an employer doesn’t offer health insurance to his workers, he will be fined $2,000 per employee.
Let’s add all this up. The annual pay for an entry-level worker making $7.50 an hour is currently $15,000.
Under a $9 minimum wage, that will increase to $18,700.
Add the cost of not offering health insurance to the employee, and the employer will be paying over $20,000 for an entry-level worker.
If he offers health insurance to the worker, the cost to the employer will climb past $25,000 for an entry-level job.
According to the agenda of President Obama and the nations’ progressive Democrats, the $9 minimum wage will create millions of new jobs. Speaking from experience, those new jobs will be in China.