I must beg to differ with Steve Hirsh of Bothell who supports the minimum wage [as printed in the Nov. 7 issue of the Reporter]. I hate to say it, but belief in the minimum wage is economically illiterate. Sort of like not believing in gravity is scientifically illiterate.

The minimum wages raises the cost of an employee. When you raise the cost of something, people buy less of it. If the price of apples rises, I’ll buy less. If the price of an employee rises, I’ll hire fewer. Its common-sense economics: the minimum wage causes unemployment and harms the economy and overall economic pie.

Many of the unemployed aptly say, “why talk about a minimum wage when I don’t even have a job.”

After all, if $15 per hour was good, why not $20 per hour or $30 per hour? How about $45 per hour? My liberal friends say to me, “Jared, now you’re being absurd.”  But if $45 per hour is absurd, isn’t $15 per hour just one third as absurd?

We can’t legislate prosperity. The government can’t just allow us to add a “0” to the end of every dollar bill to increase our wealth ten-fold. The problem is a lack of skills and education, not lack of a wage. The minimum wage only pulls up the ladder on unskilled laborers forever dooming them to unemployment and government assistance.

Americans need to become schooled in economics so that superstitious ideas like the minimum wage don’t get any attention.

Jeff Jared, Kirkland