State Republicans vote to exploit low-wage workers

Shame on Kansas.
Every year an effort is made in the Kansas Legislature to raise the state minimum wage. Every year Republicans say no and it stays stuck at $2.65 an hour, the lowest in the nation.
Every year the same, tired, untrue argument is made: minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs and if the wage were raised there would be fewer such jobs and unemployment would rise.
And every year those who utter these specious words offer not one jot or tittle of proof.
What are the facts?
Fact number one is that the only people who work for $2.65 an hour are disadvantaged in some way. Teenage baby sitters get more. High school boys charge much more to mow a yard. But there are undocumented immigrants, and some folks who are disabled mentally or physically who will work for $2.65.
Fact number two is that there is almost no correlation between unemployment and minimum wage levels in Kansas or any other of the 49 states that have a higher minimum.
Fact three is that raising the minimum wage lifts the economy. About two-thirds of the U.S. gross national product is generated by consumers. The lower a worker’s income is, the greater percentage of it is spent shortly after payday. Raising the income of those who earn the least is the fastest way to spur consumption at the local, state and national level.
Fact four is that those who benefit most from a low minimum wage are employers who exploit the disadvantaged.
Shame on the Kansas Legislature. Again.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.