Down at the DNC
In her speech last night at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton said something that probably won't get much media attention but that caught my ear nonetheless for the stunning economic illiteracy it revealed.
Reminiscing about her own failed bid for her party's nomination, Clinton said: "I will always remember the young boy who told me his mom worked for the minimum wage, that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just didn't know what his family was going to do."
Well, one thing they could do would be to, you know, stop voting for politicians who want to raise the minimum wage – as Clinton and her party did last year.
Does it not occur to Clinton that when the minimum wage goes up, many employers are forced to cut back their employees' hours? When the price of doing business increases, employers need to cut corners somewhere. And lower-level workers are often an obvious place to start – meaning that many of the workers that the minimum wage increase is allegedly designed to help actually end up making less money than before because their hours get cut.
But rest assured: Clinton and her ilk are looking out for "the little guy." Really.
