Democrats want to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour. Who would benefit from this? Surprisingly, it’s not primarily teenagers. Here are some interesting statistics:
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 80 percent of workers affected by a minimum wage increase are over the age of 20, more than a third are at least 40 years old, 55 percent work full-time, 56 percent are women, and 28 percent have children.
Wow. I’m for it (the $10 minimum wage).
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Here’s George Carlin’s words in the YouTube clip (in the event it gets taken down):
There’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the REAL owners, now. The REAL owners, the BIG WEALTHY business interests that control things and make all the important decisions — forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON’T. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own EVERYTHING. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they’ve got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They gotcha by the BALLS. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying — lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want — they want MORE for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They DON’T want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that, that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting FUCKED by system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re comin’ for your SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it BACK. So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it ALL from you sooner or later — ‘cuz they OWN this fuckin’ place. It’s a big CLUB. And YOU AIN’T IN IT. You and I are NOT IN the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe — what to think — and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-workin people — white collar, blue collar — doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-workin people CONTINUE — these are people of modest means — continue to elect these RICH COCKSUCKERS who don’t GIVE a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you, they don’t GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU. THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU — AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care … that’s what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth — it’s called the American Dream … ‘cuz you have to be asleep to believe it.
Prometheus Unbound 
I agree with Carlin. Although I’d add that the people who run the show also love immigration – new people who are unfamiliar with the countries politics, who are less interested or able to get organized and who may feel that 10 dollars is actually a good deal. When you look at red and blue states it seems many liberals like to complain about Wall Street while enjoying the benefits of cheap labor. Six of the ten most income unequal states voted for Obama. Six of the ten most equal states voted for Romney.
My guess is that the statistic you are citing is an artifact of wealth creation.
Wealth creation tends to generate inequality and the wealthier states in the United States are blue states (like New York, California, Washington, Massachusetts). Of course Romney won Mississippi, and of course the distance between the wealthiest in Mississippi and the poorest in Mississippi is not going to be as great as that distance in California. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, lives in California.
There was a time when all of Europe had a more equal distribution of wealth than even the socialist/capitalist mix that Europe is today. That time is known as the Dark Ages. And it’s not because the Dark Ages produced a more just society, but because it was a poor society.
The ten dollar minimum wage is something a society can do to address income inequality when it is wealthy and growing, and the United States is both. The Democrats, by proposing this, are essentially functioning as negotiators on behalf of the working poor–trying to achieve for them a greater share of a growing economic pie; giving them a small leg-up in negotiations they do not have the power to conduct for themselves (being at a serious disadvantage in their relations to large corporations).
I don’t think wealth creation is a good explanation. It’s usually what the political right (at least here in Europe) use as an excuse for rich people to get richer and poor people to get poorer. If you look globally, there is a pattern of wealthier countries are more equal. Most of Western Europe as well as Canada, Australia and New Zealand are among the most equal countries in the world. Most countries that are more inequal than USA are found in Africa and Latin America. And while Zuckerberg and others may skew the stats for California, let’s not forget that the state has the highest poverty rate in the union – not counting the 7 percent of non-citizens most of whom no doubt are well below the poverty limit.
You may have misunderstood me. I’m a social conservative but economically to the left. I don’t oppose a raise of the minimum wage – I don’t think 10 dollars is that much. Ireland and Argentina has more even when adjusted for purchase power. As has many of the equal countries in Western Europe and the Anglosphere I mentioned above.