Poll: Minimum wage hike bad for California

A majority of respondents in an online Argus-Courier poll said California Gov. Jerry Brown’s signing of a bill raising the state minimum wage to $15 per hour was a bad idea. About 60 percent said the state shouldn’t raise the minimum wage while about 40 percent said it should.

Here are some comments:

--

“A job should pay what it’s worth. A minimum wage job is a starter job, not a lifetime maximum.”

--

“Even that wage won’t pay rent in Petaluma.”

--

“Fast food employment should be a stepping stone while getting an education or skilled training. These jobs were not meant as a lifetime career. Raise wages and you raise prices.”

--

“For metropolitan areas yes, but not for everywhere in California.”

--

“Frankly it just looks like a very large increase because it has not been increased substantially in some time. Just watch, jobs won’t disappear, the sun will still rise, and surprise, surprise, California will continue to lead and continue to be an economic power house.”

--

“Is my pay in a highly skilled field going to increase 50 percent over the next six years? I doubt it will even increase somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 percent. How is an entry level job worth 50 percent more in six years, yet a highly skilled job will stay roughly the same?”

--

“Jobs will be lost permanently, particularly entry level ones that frequently employ teenagers. Goodbye after school and summer jobs.”

--

“That is about the amount I made working at a good job when I retired. Raise to that amount and then the good jobs will want more and everything will cost more and then they will want to raise the minimum wage again. A vicious circle.”

--

“This drastic raise in the minimum wage will cause a lot of cost increases in everything from food to rents, which are already too high. Eventually we will have to raise the minimum wage again because it won’t be enough to offset the inflation it has caused.”

--

“With well paying manufacturing jobs gone to Asia, Mexico or to robots or computers, more and more people are forced into lower paying service oriented jobs, which will never help them or their families get ahead. If we want a middle class, we need to raise these wages.”

--