Now that we’ve finished with government schools…let’s spend a few moments on the fate of those who decide that an education just isn’t their thing.
Oh, I’m going to love writing this chapter. I’m going to love it because this is one of those true hot-button issues—that is, those searing, surface-of-the-sun hot-button issues that gets things going every time on my radio show. Every time I go on about the minimum wage, we get an avalanche of hate mail.
Nothing hurts like the truth.
I thought it might be fun to share some of that hate mail with you. As you read through this chapter I’ll include a few e-mails. (No…they aren’t all hateful. I did sneak in a few nice ones to boost my own ego.) Names are included where the sender had the courage to actually send one along with his message.
I heard your commentary on minimum wage on the web. Though the comments were indeed stupid, I can’t really say I hate you because the fact is, I never heard of you prior to your stupid commentary about the minimum wage. I listen to a lot of talk radio, but I must say your name is new to me (I don’t live in NY obviously). You sound like some Bush-league (pun intended) Limbaugh wannabe. I bet you are on in my area at 3 or 4 am, right? Your commentary is unoriginal, fabricated, predictable and boring. The shtick that you, Limbaugh and Hannity spew is getting tired and worn. You are all parrots, endlessly yammering the same talking points ad nauseum. Here’s a new concept: Original thought. When is the last time you had one? If you did, it might piss off your neocon cronies, and I am sure that it may have an adverse affect on your next ratings book. Give it up, wimp. Though I shall try to phrase my thoughts in the most eloquent and stylized prose possible, I find that only two very simple words are needed to describe the pathetic sound byte that your draconian neocon crazed brain created. Short, simple and to the point: YOU SUCK.
So, what did I say to make this particular anonymous mailer so mad?
Simple. I told the insensitive, unpleasant truth.
Up until now my thoughts on the minimum wage, and the bulk of the people who earn just the minimum wage, have been expressed only on my radio show. So let’s read them into the permanent record so there’ll be no doubt whatsoever about where I stand.
Succinctly 1 put: If you’re an adult between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five who has been in the workplace for longer than six months, and you still can’t manage to earn more than the minimum wage…
YOU’RE A PATHETIC LOSER!
Mr. Boortz: Pause for a moment and just feel what it’s like to be in your skin. That’s “Loser.” Michael H.
Now, some of my friends and family have urged me not to be quite that blunt about this. The fear, I guess, is that people who read this will have a hard time seeing me as the compassionate person I truly am. They’ll wonder if I couldn’t find a better way to make my point than to call someone a loser.
Well, maybe you can help me out. What’s a better word for someone born into the most spectacular nation on earth, who somehow manages to completely ignore the educational and developmental opportunities it has to offer for years on end—and thus becomes yet another adult American without the skills necessary to earn a wage above the government-established minimum?
Did you think of another word? Fine. But please do me a favor: Don’t change my language to read, “You’re just one of the less fortunate.” That phrase, a favorite of the left, will get what’s coming to it elsewhere in this book. Having the job skills and work ethic necessary to earn more than the minimum wage is not a matter of good fortune. It’s a matter of choices and effort.
I made minimum wage last when I was 13 years old washing dishes. I was given a raise before the end of my first summer.
I later took a job as a technician in a healthcare facility. They paid in full for my nursing education, which I completed in 1990. During Clinton’s boom years, nurses were being laid off. I was promoted based on my work history with the company and my experience.
This year I’m going back to school and they will reimburse me 80%. This means I won’t need financial aid or a student loan!
My husband went to a vocational school and became an electrician. He now runs his own business and employs others at better than minimum wage.
I guess we’re the winners of life’s lottery just by luck.
Maybe if you went to an interview without being pierced, tattooed with red hair and ripped clothing, an employer might think you had some value!!!!
Maybe if you had a job before you turned thirty and didn’t show up stoned you’d get a fair wage. Marsha
Every two years or so the Democrats in Congress put on their big dog-and-pony act about raising the minimum wage. Campaigning for an increase in the minimum wage is as much a staple of the Democrat election diet as is telling voters that evil Republicans want to make life miserable for the wizened citizens by stripping them of their Social Security benefits.
The minimum wage earners are not the backbone of this country, merely the backbone of the democratic voting base. Flip F.
The Democrats, of course, would like you to believe that they want to raise the minimum wage because they’re full of caring and love for humanity. Well, that sounds mighty warm and fuzzy, but here’s something I bet you didn’t know:
Only a very small percentage of the work force—about 0.33 percent (one-third of 1 percent)—actually earns no more than the minimum wage.
Let’s face it, these job-market bottom-dwellers (there I go again) are hardly going to make any huge contribution to the Democratic vote totals on Election Day.
So why do Democrats push this issue election after election?
Unions, that’s why.
Although this little factoid somehow doesn’t seem to make it into the mainstream media with any regularity, many union contracts are tied to the prevailing minimum wage. These contracts call for the lowest-paid worker in a given industry or business to be paid by some factor of the minimum wage. Such a contract might, for instance, call for the lowest union wage to be twice the prevailing minimum wage. So when the minimum wage goes up, so do those union wages. This makes union workers happy, and keeps union bosses in their cozy jobs.
Do the math. Minimum wage workers contribute very little to political campaigns, and they may well vote even less. Unions contribute heavily, both in terms of cash and labor. Follow the money.
Neal, you are the prime example of how a person can be incompetent, stupid, and worthless, yet still be paid (note I didn’t say “earn”) far more than the minimum wage. What you have earned is a kick in the ass for being so insensitive to the plight of millions of Americans who have suffered horribly under the current Fascist-resembling Administration. Marvin S.
Democrats don’t particularly like that 0.33 percent figure. They’ll try to tell you that the percentage of American workers earning the minimum wage is more like 2.5 percent. What they won’t tell you is that most of these people are in the hospitality and leisure industry, where their actual wages are kept low to offset a rather sizeable income from gratuities. These people may be paid at or below the minimum wage by their employer, but they’re making far more.
Mr. Boortz, your comments on minimum wage and the truth behind them, are astounding to read. You call us “losers” and “trash” but the simple fact of the matter is: we are. I am a well educated, somewhat financially capable, normal human male. I made a series, no, decade, of really bad decisions. None involved drugs or alcohol, just the idiotic brain of a useless 18–25 year old. I am now 28 and am finally able to provide for a son that is not mine. For a woman, who I love, that I have not married, with an hourly wage. How did I do this? I got a job that pays me way more than minimum wage. I am a server, you call them waiters/ess, which is a profession. I am not quite sure how noble, but…it pays the bills. I make 2.13 an hour, plus tips. I also clear about 2000 dollars a month. I blame myself for being a “well-educated” loser. I am. I take full responsibility for it. You, Mr. Boortz, have an audience, a forum, to espouse your beliefs. Please, for the love of God, don’t stop. You may be able to save one person from the runaway train that is irresponsibility. I don’t blame the government, you, my parents, or society. I blame me. Respectfully yours, Billy G.
Several years ago, I read a fascinating article concerning the top ten over-paid professions in America. That list made for some fun talk radio. Among those on the list were bond traders, wedding photographers, and real estate agents selling high-end properties. (Radio talk show hosts, you ask? Nope, didn’t make the cut. There’s a reason for that.)
Here was one of the surprises on the list: airport skycaps. In many airports, skycaps are salaried at or below the minimum wage—yet they can earn in excess of $100,000 a year. If you don’t believe this, then just stand at a busy curbside check-in on some Friday afternoon and watch the five-dollar bills fly.2
Count these skycaps among those whom the Democrats want to bless with an increase in the minimum wage.
You are a pathetic, worthless, incompetent, ignorant, stupid human being and you earn more than the minimum wage! Point made! Bob A.
There’s still more that the Democrats don’t want to tell you about the minimum wage.
Another thing the Democrats won’t tell you about minimum wage workers is that, according to Census Bureau and Labor Department statistics, most workers who enter the workforce at the minimum wage get wage increases within a year. For 40 percent of them, those raises come within four months.
I agree with you completely on this subject. If they raise minimum wage then all that will do is raise what the consumer pays and increase the taxes that the companies pay. Minimum wage jobs were made up for part timer, and people starting in the work place, after school job. I believe a quote Ronald Reagan once said, “To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last—but eat you he will.” You want to make more money make your value go up to the company you work for, or sell your self to another company and show them what you can bring to the company, not what the company can do for you. Shannon F.
The philosophical argument against minimum wage laws is an easy one to make.
When government passes a minimum wage law, it is effectively telling private sector employers that they must pay some of their employees more than those employees are worth. Does that seem like an appropriate function of government in a free society?
When the government forces you to pay your workers more than the value of their work, the difference between what you have to pay them and what they are worth to you must be made up elsewhere. Basically, there are two ways to make up the difference:
Enough cutting-edge economic theory. The bottom line (to coin a phrase) is that you have to clear a very low hurdle to pull yourself out of minimum-wage status in today’s economy.
Obviously, one doesn’t have to earn minimum wage to be stupid, incompetent and pathetic—after all, look at you. If there is EVER a more pathetically “stupid” being in this current wage debate, it is you and the Republican leadership that condemns those earners to live in poverty. What, exactly is your point in keeping the wages down? What is your agenda to keeping the least amongst us, wage-wise, under these kinds of conditions? You make the world sick. You and your politics are despicable. Shame on you. Kimberly M.
During their biannual minimum wage push; Democrats and other OCCD3 sufferers love to point out that it’s all but impossible to raise a family on the minimum wage in the United States.
Well, guess what? It’s all but impossible to own and maintain a 150-foot yacht on a middle-class salary in today’s economy. The maintenance on the engines will cost more than you make, and you haven’t even put fuel in the tanks. So what’s the answer?
Don’t buy a yacht if you can’t produce the income to support it.
DON’T HAVE A FAMILY IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD DIAPERS.
Now what part of that do you find difficult to understand?
…why don’t you actually do some research before you blast hard-working Americans (most of whom on the minimum wage would put in many more hours a week than you do). Some of the most dangerous people in the US right now are people like you—rich, narrow-minded blowhards who can’t see beyond their own backyard. Get out of your booth—indeed, get out of Atlanta (have you ever traveled outside the US?)—and find out what the world is really like. Your ignorance is breathtaking…. Cyndi T.
Research? You want research?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that if your child was born in 2000 you can expect to spend about $165,630 to feed, shelter, and provide basic necessities for that child until he is eighteen. Adjust that figure for inflation, and you’re starting to crowd one quarter of a million dollars.
Note, please, that these figures presume that you kick the kid to the curb when he’s eighteen—so college tuition isn’t even factored in. If you want to foot the bill for higher education, you’ll soon be breathing some high-altitude $300,000 air.
Question: If your job skills are such that you can only earn the minimum wage, what in the hell are you doing with children?
At $5.15 per hour, and with two weeks off per year, you’re going to be able to parlay your incredibly pathetic job skills and work ethic into a whopping $185,400 during those first eighteen years of your child’s life. With inflation in the picture you’re going to come up about $50,000 short of what you need to just raise your child…with no extras!
There you are, fifty grand short, and you haven’t even purchased a carton of cigarettes and a case of beer yet!4 Yet you’re going to begat a child?
What in the world are you thinking?
Families earning minimum wage tend to have more children because sex is their version of “Disneyland.” It is about the only entertainment they can afford. It is not realistic for you to expect them to actually consider the problems of having children when they don’t earn enough to support them. It is kind of like expecting flotsam to have a desired direction. Gail H.
Oh, wait. Forget I asked. I already know what you’re thinking, and it’s no wonder. You’ve been conditioned by decades of the welfare and dependency mentality in this country to believe that all you have to do is just upload, gestate, and download, and the government is there to take care of the rest.
You don’t have to be responsible for the cost of childbirth, because your employer has provided you with a health insurance policy…or there’s always Medicaid.
You don’t have to worry about feeding your child in the early years because of the government’s WIC5 program.
You won’t have to worry about being able to afford someone to look after your child while you work, because the government has an income redistribution program—called the child care tax credit—to take care of that.
You won’t have to worry about educating your child. After all, there are always all those incredible government schools.
So what the hell? You have no job skills to speak of. You’ve ignored and squandered the educational opportunities brought before you, and the government is poised to transfer tens of thousands of dollars to you from other people who do actually have skills, and who actually did apply themselves to get a good job.
So…have the child! It’s not like you’re going to have to give up your new car, your cell phone, or cable television, is it? The government will force the burden of raising your child onto other, more responsible Americans through taxes, and on your employer through an increase in the minimum wage.
I use to listen to your show all the time, but after your comments I can NO LONGER LISTEN. I am just beside myself to think you could want to say people who have min. wage jobs with kids are stupid! First and foremost I have a niece that has a College ed. and can’t find a job…and she has NO KIDS! I have to ask why would you want to kick someone for trying? Your statements from the show were RUDE!! Why don’t you try working a 5 dollar an hour job and see if it don’t land you on the streets!!! I hope and pray that GOD has some mercy on YOU. Shawnna
Before we move on, I want to make it clear that I understand that some people encounter physical or mental disasters that either limit or eliminate their earning power. These people are worthy of our compassion and deserving of our help. Those aren’t the people I’m addressing in this particular rant.
Have you ever heard of an “enabler”?
Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary defines an “enabler” as “one that enables another to achieve an end; especially: one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior by providing excuses or by helping that individual avoid the consequences of such behavior.”
The failure to develop a marketable job skill or work ethic is the very definition of self-destructive behavior. Those who constantly drone on about minimum wage increases or “living wage” ordinances are their enablers. In every sense they help unskilled individuals avoid the consequences of their self-destructive behavior. This isn’t evidence of love or compassion. More often than not, it’s evidence of either a complete ignorance of the consequences of your action, or of political gamesmanship.
Having worked for minimum wage for a number of years, and being college educated, I really am tired of hearing rethuglicans put down those who are stuck in jobs that the rethuglicans have made by sending jobs to other countries and rewarding the corporations with welfare. Deborah B.
Someone once said that ignorance should be painful. People will work awfully hard to avoid pain.
Our federal minimum wage laws are not only an unwarranted government intrusion into the free-market relationship between employer and employee; these laws also form a system that rewards behavior our society could well do without.
The easier you make it for people to fail in their primary responsibility to develop some marketable value in our business world, the more of that self-destructive behavior you will see.
Punish that behavior—or allow the jobs marketplace to mete out its own punishment—and these negative behavior patterns will fade.
Wouldn’t we go a lot further in prompting those with no earning power to change things if we didn’t work so hard to shield them from the pain of their own actions?
Those who favor the protection of laziness and bad behavior through the ill-gotten rewards of the minimum wage are doing a disservice to the very people they profess to be helping. The idea behind raising the minimum wage—or having a government-mandated minimum wage at all, for that matter—is simply to increase and solidify the power of the political class by creating and maintaining a class of workers more dependent on government largesse for their daily bread than on their own hard work.
One more point.
Didn’t I ever work for the minimum wage? Sure, I did. Once.
During my senior year in high school, I bagged groceries at the A&P on Ninth Avenue in Pensacola, Florida. I was paid minimum wage—$1.00 an hour—but the tips from women admiring my hunky physique as I carried their groceries to their cars took me well above the minimum.
The manager’s name was Brown. I’ll never forget him. He was the first of many bosses to fire me. When the minimum wage went to $1.25, they had to let a bag boy go. Last hired, Boortz fired.
I told Mr. Brown I was perfectly willing to continue to work for the $1.00 an hour. He said I couldn’t. The government wouldn’t let me. I think that was my first experience with government intervention in what I considered to be my personal life.
Little did I know…