During Monday’s broadcast of The Gill Report – live on WETR 92.3 FM in Knoxville – conservative political commentator and Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill questioned whether the left truly understands the dynamics of equality and economics and how mandating the rise of minimum wage may inadvertently deplete a human work force.
Gill pondered, “Among the many things that kind of make me scratch my head and wonder about, well the left and those that don’t understand basic economics – kind of like the woman NBA player complaining about not getting paid as much as men.”
He continued:
When the WNBA creates 25 million a a year in revenue and the men’s NBA creates 7.4 billion in revenue. You can only pay what’s produced at the gate and until women’s basketball produces more fans more interest more viewership more butts int the seat. Women’s’ basketball players aren’t going to get paid what men’s basketball players get paid when they generate the eyeballs. It’s simple economics.
You’re also seeing folks on the left complain that we’ve got to raise the minimum wage. And were seeing it take place around the country. Where some places are seeing $15.00 minimum wage at fast food restaurants. And you’re seeing some legislative efforts to force a minimum wage of 15, 16, 17 dollars an hour so that people will have a living wage.
The problem with that it incentives business’s to well make a profit, which means if they can find a machine kind of like those machines your starting to see in fast food restaurants and grocery stores where you can just put in your own order or run your own groceries through the payment process without having a human interaction, it’s a lot cheaper.
They don’t have to worry about people showing up for work, they don’t have to worry about withholding taxes, they don’t have to worry about the issues that come with personnel, they don’t have to worry about healthcare. it’s cheaper. And there is a price point I don’t know whether 15 dollars or 16 dollars is but there is price point where it’s cheaper to automate than it is to pay people. We’ve seen it throughout history.
Whether it was the invention of the cotton gin or other automatic ways to pull in crops. Whether it was more automatic sewing machines that well kind of displaced some of the folks that were using needle and thread. Automation has been a part of innovation throughout the history of mankind. And your seeing more and more robotics your seeing more and more ways in which employers can use technology to replace people. It’s a sad fact, it’s a sad truth.
There are still other jobs out there, but when you raise the cost of human employment, you can pretty soon price your way out of business. And we are starting to see that. Were starting to see protest from unions complaining about people being ‘technologied’ out of business.
It’s a sad truth it’s a sad fact of life and your going to see more of rather than less of it, in years to come.
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