Pelosi on the Minimum Wage

Nancy Pelosi always seemed to be a bit of an empty suit to me (empty pant-suit?) She must be pretty smart to rise up in the Democratic Party, but… In this clip, Jan Helfeld basically ambushes her on the minimum wage, and Pelosi has a great deal of difficulty coming up with a coherent answer.

Pelosi cannot justify paying her interns below minimum wage, while at the same time insisting that no one should have to work for so little per hour. …I think what she is trying to eventually say is that there are benefits of working for a Congresswoman that are not captured in salary. It is great for a resume and builds connections. So, this should make it exempt from minimum wage laws.

Of course, there are benefits from every job that are not included in wages. Even the worst jobs offer people, if not the possibility to move up, at least the chance to prove their work ethic and thus improve their market value as a worker. So, a $5.15 per hour job is generally worth quite a bit more than $5.15 per hour. There are some people who are not employable for minimum wage because of their apparent skills and history. Increasing minimum wages gives fewer employers an ability to rationally hire marginal workers, thus harming their ability to move up, and creating an underclass.

I think the minimum wage is a product of a common thread in a certain left-wing views, which goes something like this: A. It is awful that some people are disadvantaged so that their best option is X. B. X is awful. C. We should ban X. It’s a bit Underpants Gnome-ish, and quite hard to justify once you think about it.