First, I claim no expertise in financial matters. I never have had any investments. I drive a 19-year-old Ford Taurus. I always depended on the lay trustees to run parish finances at the 10 parishes where I’ve served. I have no computer and cannot afford to hire a second-grader to show me how to use one.
So, now to the minimum-wage matter from a non-expert and in response to the April 22 letter, “Wage increase doesn’t help people who work for tips.”
I see raising the minimum wage as very wrong every time. It inflates the dollar to the point of it losing value. What once was a 3-cent stamp now costs 49 cents, and everything else also has inflated in price proportionately. And the inflation is passed on to customers, whether it’s truckers in need of buying fuel or anyone else along the customer chain.
Then employers have few options. They may lay off employees or cut their hours or reduce their benefits or any of the other things they devise for their own protection.
Behind most of it all are the great number of politicians whose whole interest is focused only on themselves, their perks, and looking good by such things as raising the minimum wage.
Students and other seekers of first jobs are flocking back into their parents’ homes even after they are married because they have no income of their own on which to live.
There also may be other causes. This amateur hopes there are some experts out there who are also sensitive to the common good of others, especially those on the bottom of the income scale. This inflation wipes out anything over which politicians gloat.
Instead of destroying the value of the dollar, find ways to reduce costs.
These were words from a non-
expert to those great minds in Washington and Wall Street.
Father Richard Partika
Duluth
