For years, Democrats have been arguing for a large minimum wage increase, even campaigning on the issue. The argument has led to fast food worker strikes across the country, as those earning less than minimum wage have been made to feel like they deserve more money.
The result of such a wage increase has, as conservatives pointed out, not been favorable to the very people it was supposed to help.
After Seattle increased its minimum wage to $15 an hour, low-wage workers were laid off or had their hours reduced. Employers also cut payrolls and put off hiring new workers, according to a study by economists at the University of Washington commissioned by the National Bureau of Economic Research. There were limitations to the study (it has not been peer-reviewed, for one thing), but it did show what Republicans (and those with common sense) had been saying. Another study released this year showed that smaller wage increases offset the problems we saw in Seattle.
As the Left steadfastly adhered to the higher minimum wage fight, fast food restaurants are replacing cashiers (minimum wage workers) with machines. Jack in the Box’s CEO, Leonard Comma, said earlier this year that “it just makes sense” to add the machines in response to the rising costs of labor. Eighteen states are raising or have raised their minimum wage this year, prompting other fast food chains — such as Wendy’s and smaller chains — to replace cashiers with self-ordering kiosks. McDonald’s plans to add the kiosks, too, but said it would keep its cashiers (we’ll see how long that lasts).
But now the Left is suggesting our doctors should earn less in the name of socialized health care. Today, Vox’s Matt Yglesias sneered on Twitter that it “would be quite the spectacle to behold” to see U.S. doctors take a pay cut to earn what Canadian doctors do.
Yglesias shared a Politico article about how U.S. doctors make more than those in Canada and Europe in response to a question about what Canadian doctors earn.
U.S. doctors would have to slash their income by a third to fall in line with Canadian doctors, but this appears to be okay with many on the Left if it means socialized medicine. This isn’t a new thing for Yglesias. He lamented the high pay of U.S. doctors back in 2013 at Slate, prompting other left-leaning outlets — such as Mother Jones — to follow suit. The Daily Beast tackled the issue in 2012.
With Sen. Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) advocating for Medicare-for-all, and other progressives running for congress doing the same, expect to see a lot more discussion on who, according to the Left, deserves to be paid more or less based on their own political favoritism.