
Target Hiked Their Minimum Wage to $15. What Happened Next was Predictable.
Get woke, go broke – that’s what they say. And while we’re sure Target will remain solvent for many years to come, their employees may already be wishing the retail corporation had done a little more thinking before joining the Democrats in the Fight for $15. Apparently hoping for some good, healthy praise from people like Bernie Sanders and other progressives, the company announced recently that they would push their minimum wage to $15 an hour by next year. But in trying to make that lofty goal, Target is cutting employee working hours.
Does it ever NOT happen this way?
“I got that dollar raise but I’m getting $200 less in my paycheck,” said a Florida employee named Heather in an interview with CNN. “I have no idea how I’m going to pay rent or buy food.”
Ah. Well, see, Heather, that’s a feature of progressive plans, not a bug. The idea is that we’ll make the economic landscape so bleak that you WON’T be able to pay rent or buy food. And then, when we’ve done that to enough people, Big Brother will have no choice but to swoop in and rescue you from the perils of Evil Capitalism.
“Meanwhile, cuts in worker hours have affected employees’ eligibility for health benefits,” reports National Review. “Employees who work less than 30 hours per week are deemed ineligible for company health benefits at the start of Target’s spring enrollment period.”
Again, things are working just as intended. Not only do companies like Target (big Democratic donors, we’ve no doubt) get to skimp out on providing health insurance, but their failure to do so makes the entire insurance industry look broken and hopeless. How do we fix that? Deregulation? A return to free market principles? Don’t make us laugh. We fix it by turning the federal government into a health insurance company, backed and paid for by the American taxpayer!
But wait. Wait a minute. Who is actually going to be paying those taxes when everyone is out of work or picking up 15 hours a week at the local Target?
Silly question: The Evil Billionaires will pay for it all! Doesn’t that seem totally likely!
Obviously, in this case, we’re not talking about actual government interference – Target chose to raise their minimum wage on their own. Still, it serves as a case study in what happens when you make decisions based on your political ideology and not on what works in the marketplace. Target, we’re sure, will be just fine. The employees? Well, not so much.