IS THE APRIL 1ST NEW CALIFORNIA MINIMUM WAGE A POLITICAL BURNT OFFERNG, as the saying, "Be careful what you wish for, rings loudly, like a Sunday church bell harbinger of tribulations, heralding in a new time, day or era? Some may find themselves both benefits challenged and in the unemployment line.
According to, Richard B. McKenzie, professor of economics emeritus in the Merage Business School at the University of California, whose article, California Dreaming: The effects of California's "Fast Food" minimum wage, ' Faced with an above-market minimum wage, employers will be pressed to offset the money-wage hike with savings in labor costs that can come with replacement of covered workers by uncovered “non-human workers”—kiosk order takers and “burger bots.” These “tech workers” have an enviable market-wage advantage over their human competitors: Their legal California minimum wage is hard to beat: $0.00!'
Furthermore, McKenzie states that the rise in wages will mean losses of benefits, as many minimum-wage workers belong to multiple welfare programs, and cites agreeably with economist Craig Richardson by saying, this leaves ' covered minimum-wage workers facing higher marginal tax rates that are higher than the marginal income tax rates paid by the rich—even higher than 100 percent (which means that some covered minimum-wage California workers on welfare will lose more in benefits than the money they gain from the $4 increase in their minimum wage), an unseen consequence that hardly their incentives to continue working. '
Interestingly enough, McKenzie states, as all California companies were already, in order to operate effectively, forced to pay more than required, the anticipated impact of this new wage increase is likely to do more harm than good--- many minimum wage earners were already getting more than $16, or more before the new mandate went into effect.
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