John Boehner Would Rather Kill Himself Than Raise Minimum Wage Because He Is A Dick

You know what a fate worse than death would be? Paying the fry cook at your local McBurgerQueen slightly more than the shitty wage she is earning today. Weeper of the House John Boehner would rather kill himself than see hardworking Americans be able to earn a living wage. Per The Hill:  

Speaker John Boehner is so against raising the minimum wage that he once said he would rather commit suicide than vote for a “clean” increase.

Okay, so "once" was in 1996, but we haven't heard that he's taken his head out of the oven this time around. And we kind of agree. No, not with killing himself because WE VALUE ALL HUMAN LIFE HERE. (Wonkers, no ideating on his death -- or dismemberment -- in the comments, thank you.) But because who would want to live in a world where someone working two part-time jobs is able to afford food for their ENTIRE family?!? *Shudder*Oh, did we mention that Boehner just bought an $835k vacation home in Florida? Haha, fuck you poor people.

Boehner has been opposed to raising the minimum wage since he entered Congress. If it were up to him, it would still be $4.25/hour, when he voted against raising it in 1996. He blames it on being the son of a barkeep and a small business owner, and how raising the minimum wage will force all business owners toabandon their swanky vacation homes in Floridastop hiring as many people. And he got support from a controversial Congressional Budget Office study:

Congressional Budget Office’s recent report that found that increasing the minimum wage could cost the economy 500,000 jobs.

However, many folks have disagreed with the study, because it is based on academic theory and not real-world experience. For example, per Fiscal Times:  

As it turns out, numerous studies looking at “natural experiments” in minimum wage increases – meaning actual events rather than academic models – find that moderate increases have “no discernible effect” on employment.

What?!? That's crazy. Everyone knows that academic models trump real world experience when they bolster conservative positions. But are there any actual examples, more tangible than that?

The first evidence that this might be the case arose in 1994, when economists David Card and Alan Krueger published a paper studying employment at fast food restaurants in neighboring parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey after New Jersey raised its minimum wage and Pennsylvania kept its wage steady. The economists surveyed hundreds of restaurants on both sides of the border, and determined that the wage hike in New Jersey had no measurable effect on employment.

Oh, so this notion of raising the minimum wage is a job-killer is just a line of Republican bullshit that is used to justify lining the pockets of large corporations, and in turn the politicians they donate to?

This is all coming to the surface because our Commie-in-Chief wants to enrich the takers by raising the minimum wage from $7.25/hr to $10.10/hr. Meaning that someone working a minimum wage job for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks per year would make slightly more than $20,000 per year (before taxes). And that's only $203,000 less than Speaker Boehner, so it does seem exorbitant. Hell, that kind of mad cash would lift a family of four to only $3,000 UNDER the federal poverty line! We could almost (but not quite!) lift families out of poverty, but that is a notion too scary to contemplate. Suicide would be easier.

Then again, if the poor start getting less poor, what's to keep the riff-raff away from swanky Florida vacation homes?   

[ The Hill / USA Today / Fiscal Times ]

 Follow DDM on Twitter ( @Wonksplainer ), where he tweets from his vacation home in the South of Basementville.