Letter to the Editor: Minimum-wage increase/Tulsa massacre comparison is a stretch

A recent letter (“Time to end distraction and pain that low wages cause” June 17), couldn’t have been titled better. How did the author miss it?

The gist of the letter was in support of the $15 minimum wage. How the Tulsa Race Massacre got dragged into the discussion is beyond any reason.

The Tulsa Race Massacre was a sickeningly racial attack by bigoted locals. The Greenwood District of Tulsa was called “Black Wall Street” and was one of the most successful and affluent Black neighborhoods in America. It happened just after Memorial Day in 1921. An 18-year-old White elevator operator accused a young Black shoeshine man of assault. He was arrested, but bigots started rumors of raiding the jail and lynching the man. Ultimately, the bigots razed the neighborhood. More than 800 Blacks were injured, with an estimated 300 murdered. Vigilantes imprisoned more than 6,000 Blacks until the governor declared martial law. Without any doubt, it was one of the darkest days in American history.

Conversely, that sickening and sad day had nothing to do with “minimum wage.” That would come 17 years later.

With the lingering effects of the Great Depression and concern for the possibility of another World War, Congress enacted the minimum-wage law in 1938. It established 25 cents an hour as the lowest wage to be paid a permanent employee. The verbiage didn’t address farm workers and most private domestic workers who, even now, work clandestinely and are paid “under the table.”

Minimum wage was never intended as a primary income. It was meant as entry-level pay for menial jobs. To force employers to raise minimum wages while burgeoning inflation hangs over them is a recipe for economic disaster. Small businesses who face a daily struggle to keep their books in the black will be faced with releasing employees, raising prices or closing their businesses.

For those who can afford those choices, there will be the expected shuffling at the lower ends of the pay scale, but midlevel workers won’t even notice. With the government unemployment handouts paying higher cumulative salaries and businesses begging for people to work, raising minimum wage to $15 is nothing more than a ploy by bureaucrats. In reality, however, the vision is starker. Unless you’ve been on the International Space Station, you’ve seen more and more businesses going to customer service kiosks and self-checkouts. Those are jobs that will never come back, as the nationwide business shutdown sealed that deal.

They no longer teach civics and economics in school, but for those of us who did learn those subjects, raising minimum wage at a time of low employment and hyperinflation is a Catch-22, where prices increase exponentially, creating an even greater impact on the low-income families the wage increase was meant to save.

George Roof

Magnolia