State of Economics - Someone Has To Pay . . .

Time for another Penguin rant. Fair warning
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Alrighty then.

As I am sure most of you know California has raised their minimum wage to all workers. At face value you might think this is a good thing. More money for people which you would think makes it easier to live or use for items/services that prior to it they could not afford. For the most part that is far from the truth.

Nothing is free in this world and if something goes up in cost it will cost someone somewhere down the road and that is what is happening now that the new wage hike has taken effect. Businesses are now forced to pay everyone and that includes teenagers that "probably" don't "deserve" it. I am all for giving people that work hard and excel at their job to receive the money they deserve. But for a new worker that has worked less than a year and is just "doing their job" they deserve a $1 raise this year and another one next year? If you are fine with everyone getting more money then you have to accept and not bitch about businesses raising their prices. This is where its getting funny. I have heard people complain for weeks now stating there should be a law that prevents businesses from raising their prices due to minimum wage going up. They state why is this burger that was $3 last week but now $3.75 this week? That's not fair. Well it's not fair that I have to pay for everyone else medical insurance when they don't do anything to earn it on their own but that is another rant for another day.

Businesses are following the law and are giving their employees the new wage. Well, that is coming out of their pocket and their profits so they have to recoup it somewhere. The cost to them of doing business is not going down due to wages, supplies, upkeep, etc all going up so someone has to pay. Guess what? That's going to be you and I hence why you see all the prices going up around town. The businesses could just lay off a couple of people to compensate for the wage hike but most businesses don't want to do that. If they did do that though then the remaining employees will have to do more work so I guess the remaining employees will earn their raise then huh? A little sarcasm.

At the end of the day I am just as irritated at the rising costs just as much as you are but I understand and hope everyone else can see that for every action there is a reaction. This can be applied to all facets of life but I don't think people can or want to see that. People get free health care, great, it has to come out of someone's pocket. Comes out of mine and I am sure yours as well. If it makes you feel better rationalize the new wage hike as a cost increase that all businesses get. Meat, bread, eggs etc all go up and they pass it on to you. So just put the wage hike it in that group and maybe you won't be as irritated when you go into your favorite bar, restaurant, etc and see how prices have jumped. Or you can always do what I am doing, finding cheaper alternatives and giving them my money. Of course if more people do that than certain businesses may fold as their sales plummet due to less customers as they protest the rising costs and if that happens then there will be more unemployment because of a wage hike that was supposed to give more people more money but instead took all the money from some people but that is a rant for another day.