|
Townhall
Destroying
Household Jobs
Thomas Sowell
Oct 01, 2013
Despite evidence from
around the world that minimum wage laws can price low-skilled workers
out of jobs, the U.S. Department of Labor is planning to extend
minimum wage coverage to domestic workers, such as maids or those who
drop in from time to time to do a few household chores for the sick
and the elderly.
This coverage is scheduled
to begin in January 2015 -- that is, after the 2014 elections and
nearly two years before the 2016 elections. Politicians show a lot of
cleverness in protecting their own interests, even if they show very
little wisdom as far as serving the public interest.
If making household workers
subject to the minimum wage law is expected to produce good results,
why not let those good results begin early, so that voters will know
about them before the next election?
But, if this new extension
of the minimum wage law opens a whole new can of worms -- as is more
likely -- politicians who support this extension want to insulate
themselves from a voter backlash. Hence artfully choosing January
2015 as the effective date, to minimize the political risks to
themselves.
The reason this particular
extension of the minimum wage law is likely to open a can of worms is
that both household workers and those who employ them will face more
complications than employers and employees in industry or commerce.
First of all, ill or
elderly individuals who need someone to help them from time to time
are not like employers who have a business that regularly hires
people and may have a personnel department to handle all the
paperwork and keep up with all the legal requirements when government
bureaucrats are involved.
Often the very reason for
hiring part-time household workers is that some ill or elderly
individuals have limited energy or capacity for handling things that
were easy to handle when they were younger or in better health.
Bureaucratic paperwork and legal technicalities are the last thing
they need to have to add to their existing problems.
For the rest of this
article and more, go to Townhall
|
