Even Free Spending Californians Not Fooled by a 'Maximum Wage'
Imagine our surprise last month when we discovered California residents can vote just like Oklahomans when they become fed up with leftist promises.
Here we wrote that evidently California residents are tired of the soft-on-crime policies favored by Democrats, because they voted by a 70% margin to make crime illegal again.
The passage of Proposition 36 last November reversed the lax enforcement policies that unleashed the current wave of shoplifting that’s inundating the state.
There was another noteworthy proposition on the ballot in November: Proposition 32.
This lefty bright idea would have raised the minimum wage in California for entry level jobs to $18 per hour.
Normally, we would have thought this proposal would have passed with flying colors.
Many Golden State residents are all about spending someone else’s money.
Combine that with the moral exhibitionism of "fighting for the poor" and it’s time to go ahead and order the champagne for the victory party.
Only that’s not what happened.
It took two weeks for California’s corrupt and incompetent election system to determine the result, but Propostion 32 . . . Lost!
The left-adherents at Politico thought this was as momentous as we did.
"Prop 32, which would have brought the state’s minimum wage up to $18 per hour, was the first [California] minimum-wage measure to lose at the ballot in almost three decades.
"The defeat of an initiative to raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour makes California the first state to reject a statewide minimum-wage increase at the ballot in almost 30 years, an outcome likely to reverberate across organized labor nationally."
Why did California voters reverse 30 years of wage increases?
We think it’s because California residents are finally grasping rudimentary economic concepts. Namely when a business encounters rising costs that can’t be avoided, the customers get to take up the slack through higher prices.
Jot Condie, the president and CEO of the California Restaurant Association, agrees with us. He "called voter’s rejection of Proposition 32 'historic' and argued it represented a rejection of laws that Condie said added to the state’s high cost of living."
“It is important that policymakers hear the message being sent by the voters — stop using California consumers as guinea pigs for public policy experiments that make life more expensive for everyone," Condie said.
The not-so-conservatively-inclined Los Angeles Times also weighed in on the rejection.
"Opponents and economists said that by striking down the proposed minimum-wage increase, voters signaled that they were nervous about businesses raising prices to offset their added labor expenses.
"The prospect of paying more for consumer goods was especially unappealing after years of high inflation, which has led to a persistent feeling among many people that they’re on shaky financial footing."
California already has almost the highest minimum wage in the nation at $16 per hour.
However, that doesn’t include the recent minimum wage hike imposed on fast food outlets that brought that wage to $20 per hour.
The results have been what sane people expected.
"With the state’s mandatory minimum wage for fast-food workers set to increase to $20 an hour, many restaurant chains are preparing to raise prices. …
"Even before it kicked in, fast-food giants including Chipotle, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Jack in the Box and Shake Shack warned that they were planning to raise menu prices as a result, leaving customers to eat the cost.
"Fast-food consumers are very frustrated by the price increases that they’re seeing," said Condie. "They were just connecting the dots and saying, ‘This $18-an-hour minimum wage is going to increase prices across the board.'"
Yes, Condie is correct. And the result is rudimentary economics. Higher wages equal higher costs and higher costs must be passed on to the consumer.
And at some point, even guinea pigs get tired of expensive social experiments.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Mr. Reagan is an in-demand speaker with Premiere Speaker's Bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now With Added Humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.