Southern Poverty Law Center promotes poverty
Federal officials assign higher minimum wages to migrant workers than they do to domestic workers–presumably to appease organized laborers who squirm at the thought of honest competition. Now they’re raising these minimum wages again, and in a big way. As the News and Observer reported this morning, that means, for example, by 50 percent for seafood processors.
Who comes out in defense of this initiative? None other than the Southern Poverty Law Center. Apparently, governmentally assigned (insert: arbitrary) wages are a good idea and higher ones are appropriate.
As the N&O rightly notes, this will cause businesses to cut back on their hiring. So these migrant workers, many of limited means, will have no job not a better paid job. That means both the employers and employees will miss out on what have been mutually beneficial arrangements. Additionally, consumers will face higher prices, as the costs of supply get passed on.
The only ones to benefit in this protectionist scenario are the laborers who gain an advantage over migrant labor. Shame on them and their lobbies for impeding peaceful and productive enterprise.
