The campaign to raise the minimum wage is relentless. Supposedly, 6 percent of the workforce will benefit from the raise. However, when you raise the cost of labor, up goes the cost of goods.
The benefits to the small percentage affected by the so-called “livable” wage increase vanish fast. Inflation rears its economically rational head and cuts into the buying power of all, including the other 94 percent of wage earners. It’s an often-repeated story.
So, who really benefits? For the Internal Revenue Service, the raising of the minimum wage by $4 an hour means an automatic deduction out of each paycheck of $1, representing a take of 25 percent of the raise.
Naturally, some but not all of these deductions are returned via income tax returns the following year.
Basically, for the government, the raising of the minimum wage can be viewed as inroads to an interest-free loan amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Robert Denbow
Saco
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