The real cost of the minimum wage raise is that more unskilled and partly-skilled workers and young adults will be cut out of the workforce market. Not that people shouldn’t earn more against inflation, just that the entry point is closed to apprentices because they cost too much, not having a skill.

The apprentices in past ages paid their employers to teach them the work and they only earned according to their skills and abilities to actually produce. This may or may not be workable at this time, however now these kids join gangs, sell drugs and become social drop-outs simply and only because they have been disenfranchised by the society that seeks to help them by raising the wage level without compensating for their need to learn skills.

Instead of being part of a workforce that contributes to the wealth of the nation, they cost billions in plant security, police personnel and equipment, and taxes, among other costs. There are larger issues facing us today, no doubt about that.

This is also largely a part of the more far-reaching issue of lack of a useful education in this country and the world. As any personnel director can tell you, finding skilled people who can match their paychecks with production is difficult at best. Corporations are always having to train workers. But when they have to pay the way for people with no skills whatsoever, they simply can’t afford to hire them, and the dwindling spiral of unemployment, crime, disenfranchisement and the taxation to pay for all this continues to insidiously bring the whole social structure down.

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