Sunday, March 10, 2013

Minimum Wage Thoughts

 Not one but two letters to the editor in today's Star Tribune worth reprinting here:

MINIMUM WAGE
Let’s put this issue in proper perspective

The debate over whether to raise the minimum wage got me thinking: What if there were a maximum wage? What if CEOs could not make 500 times what their lowest-paid workers earned? What if legislators only got paid if their work was finished? What if legislators had to live with the same medical and financial constraints as the people who elected them? What if …?
SCOTT DEVITT, Buffalo, Minn.

In reading the pro/con commentaries about raising the state’s minimum wage (Opinion Exchange, Feb. 24), I couldn’t help thinking of the furor caused when Henry Ford increased his workers’ wage to $5 a day. Naysayers predicted the company would soon be bankrupt, but production increased, costs fell and those same workers could afford a Ford.
DAN STRONG, Brooklyn Park
 

1 comment:

Michael Leddy said...

Ford was also important in the development of the five-day workweek. (Though I'd rather give all the credit to unions.)