Why?  When there are articles like this one from the New York Post…

Americans haven’t gotten a raise in 16 years

And that drop in the unemployment rate that everyone likes to point to? Even the Fed doesn’t trust it and has formulated its own replacement gauge.

Here’s why: When you count all the workers who have been stuck with part-time employment or who haven’t searched for work in a year, the jobless rate is twice the official 5% level. And many of the full-time jobs created have been in the lower-paying service sector of the economy.

When you include those people who haven’t sought a job in more than a year, the unemployment rate jumps much higher.

How high? Washington doesn’t even bother trying to calculate what it is.

One last statistic, from Sentier Research. Median annual household income in the US reached $57,263 this past March, which was 4.5% higher than in March 2015.

But — and here’s where the anger comes in — this March’s figure is still slightly below the $57,342 median annual income in January 2000.

January 2000!

Americans haven’t gotten a raise in more than 16 years.

Statistical noise doesn’t just confuse economists and politicians. It also drowns out the sound of people complaining.

Raising the minimum wage to $15/ hour would be doubling the money being handed over to those that are so young that they have not yet learned what a job really is, those with personal problems such as mental illness or drug dependence that keep them mired on the first step of the ladder.  Rewards those who shirk responsibility and have never done anymore than the ‘minimum’ to get by.

I retired last month.  It’s cool, I’m doing OK.  No debts, enough to live on.  I volunteer as a medical van driver about ten to twenty hours a week, meet people and am learning about the ins and outs of the back streets of my town.  If I had to I’d get a (minimum) wage job to make ends meet.  But I’d expect that it wouldn’t be minimum wage or I wouldn’t stay at minimum wage very long.  After forty  plus years I know how to work; work undistracted by iPhones, Walkmans (showing my age there) or drugs.  Because I know that no one ‘owes’ me a paycheck just for showing up.

Incidentally, that ‘Minimum Wage’ of $15 dollars an hour is seven thousand dollars over the halfway point of the national median income quoted above.  So two minimum wage losers (if they could keep their jobs) would be far better off than that ‘Median’ American family that no one is interested in helping. (No Raise for You!)  That family that pays higher taxes, has student loans, property taxes…

and is going to vote for Donald Trump.