LETTER: Minimum wage hike would lead to economic disaster

Vote against Initiative 1433 to absolve the “general consequences.”

“Economics … is a science of recognizing secondary consequences. It is also a science of seeing general consequences.”

—Henry Hazlitt

If you become part of a majority to pass a minimum wage hike, what destructive consequences might result?

Do economics-challenged masterminds and delusional fantasy-land do-gooders pretend businesses don’t compensate for minimum wage increases through higher consumer product and service prices?

Because government cannot force employers to keep less skilled employees not worth a mandated wage hike, might these workers become unemployed?

If minimum wage forces business closures, would less competition cause higher priced products and services?

Might businesses’ and consumers’ alternatives to higher prices from increased minimum wage be cheaper imported product purchases?

Might this reduce American jobs?

When minimum wages condemn the least skilled to unemployment, don’t they lose opportunities to learn basic employment skills for future employment?

Once their entry-level jobs end, when the least skilled can’t compete for higher-skilled employment, what are the incentives for searching for new employment?

Might least-skilled workers prefer slightly less pay than unemployment and dependency upon unemployment compensation?

Does joblessness undermine the self-worth of the unemployed?

Doesn’t voting for a minimum wage discriminate against less skilled workers?

Why would millions of voters, knowing nothing about other individuals’ personal situations, presume they possess moral authority to deprive fellow Americans of the essential natural right to work by denying freedom to choose to work for less?

Before voting, learn fundamental economic facts about minimum wage at http://tinyurl.com/ld62d3o and http://tinyurl.com/jscwn5k.

Reject I-1433.

Susan Shotthafer,

Port Angeles

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