I started working for money when I was 9 years old. My first job was short and brutal. I loaded live chickens from a chicken house onto 18-wheelers. I have no idea where they were going. My job was to take the chickens out of the cages, haul them by their feet up the long rows of the chicken house, two in each hand was adequate, four in each hand was superior, and put them into crates for transport. I don't remember how long that job lasted, but I made $40 dollars and I never spent it because nothing I wanted to buy was worth the work it cost me.
I've been a penny pincher ever since. My next job was babysitting and I did a fair amount of that. I loved little kids, but the pay wasn't all that great. I did manage to save one child's life during my babysitting years and it still brings a smile because as soon as the little guy's mom got home, Jason announced, " I drowned, but Lana saved me."
I was twelve, I rode my bicycle to work every day, and most days I chased Jason down the street in his underwear. If he got outside it was Katy bar the door. Because of my swimming pool heroics, I managed to land that babysitting job for several summers. One night, the oldest boy, not the drowning victim, refused to go to bed so I put him there. He wasn't that much younger than me, I want to say 8 or 9 years-old, and I was and always have been a short person, but I'm nothing if not determined and go to bed he did.
The next day his father called me over to the house and said, "Gary has rug burns on his back. He says you did it."
Gary glared at me. And I said, "Yes, sir, I did. You told me he had to go to bed at 9, he refused, and I told him if he didn't go I'd drag him there and sit on him until you got home. So I did."
Amazingly, Gary's dad laughed and told Gary he should probably go to bed when I told him to and that was that. Amazingly, that is how alot of parents were back in the day. They blamed their kids for their misbehavior, not teachers or babysitters.
Many years later after I married and had kids, MrG and I were at a dance and concert up in West Texas put on by the Maines brothers. Yes, the infamous Maines family, Natalie being the most famous, is from West Texas. And who should stroll up and ask me to two-step but not-so-little Gary. He was almost a head taller than me. We had a lovely time catching up, but the first thing out of his mouth was, "Remember when you drug me to bed?"
That same visit we dropped by to see Jason and the family and Jason was even bigger than Gary. He burst out the front door, picked me up, and spun me around several times before he put me down again. And I said, "Hopefully you're not running around the neighborhood in your underwear anymore, cause I don't think I can catch you!"
All that to say, I learned how to work at an early age and I did a fair enough job that everyone I worked for still liked me years later. My parents taught me the important things about having a job and I listened to their advice. You always get to work on time. You rarely take off and you're dependable. You always make a hand. (For those who didn't grow up in West Texas, that means you do whatever needs to be done without complaining, work hard at whatever you do, and with a smile.) You always do just a little bit extra so you stand out. It always worked for me.
When I was fourteen and with summer comin' on, Daddy told me if I didn't have a job by summer, he'd get me one. I didn't get one, but Daddy was true to his word and I boarded the bus to the fields at an ungodly hour every morning as soon as summer break began. I don't think I was making minimum wage even then. All the kids who wanted to work and get good money in the summer worked in the fields. We rogued maize and detassled corn all summer. The work was hot, horrible, and nasty but the paychecks were excellent. I was the only white girl on that bus and that was a whole nother learning experience which I couldn't have gotten anywhere else and wouldn't trade for anything.
I was also probably the only girl whose mother got up in the morning and made her french toast and took pictures of her groggy, working daughter before she left. She didn't feel sorry for me, but she helped me learn to work and pampered me just a little along the way.
The next summer, needless to say, I had already found a job. Thanks, but no thanks, Daddy. I had been hired at the local family fun park as clown supervisor. As clown supervisor, I organized all the children's parties and supervised and scheduled the parties and the clowns. As supervisor to the clowns, I made more than minimum wage which was only fair. I have no idea how many times I went down the water slide with a frightened child in my clown suit.
The next summer, I got a job at what many would recognize as a Hallmark store. I worked as a stocker and salesperson until the owner noticed I was pretty bright and decided I needed to work in the office. He talked me into signing up for vocational office education so I could work in the backroom from noon until six everyday. I negotiated Fridays off so I could go to football games and pep rallies. I hadn't made minimum wage since I was 13.
The point is this. Raising the minimum wage won't help anyone who doesn't want to work and there isn't any need to raise the minimum wage for those who actually do want to work. Anyone who wants to work and do a good job won't be making minimum wage in a very short period of time. Anyone still making minimum wage after a year has problems with work ethic and needs to buckle down and do a better job. Raising the minimum wage will do nothing more than put the slackers out of job. And maybe they deserve it, but I don't think that's what the Democrats are going for with this plan. They want people to make more money, but they don't want to insist they truly earn it.
Earning it, and the satisfaction that comes with it, is the very best way to encourage low paid workers to excel. They see the rewards of honest work, they like the satisfaction of the job well done, they are proud of their efforts, and they begin to see the world in a whole new light.
And if they don't, they don't deserve even minimum wage and certainly not welfare benefits. Which is another part of the problem, isn't it? Welfare for people who won't work? It boggles the mind, but that's a whole other post.