peepers
12-05-2010, 11:45 PM
It was a warm and fuzzy feature. It was on CBS's "60 Minutes," and told how American Samoa produced a wildly disproportionate number of NFL football players for its population of 65,000.
It was nice to be hearing something positive amid all the current sadness until the announcer mentioned in passing how the economy of that South Pacific territory had been ruined by a minimum wage mandate from Congress.
What? Could it be that Congress had again found a way to wreck people's lives?
I looked it up. It is true. In 2007, Congress bypassed the usual method of having the Labor Department adjust American Samoan wage minimums and dictated that the current $3.76 for canning fish would increase to $7.25 in stages by 2014. It wasn't all that long before Chicken of the Sea said goodbye, we're gone, have fun.
That meant a loss of 2,041 jobs right there, and the next thing you knew, Star Kist was also reducing jobs, and if you think a couple of thousand jobs here and another thousand or two there don't mean anything, understand that when you put all the possible losses together, you are talking about more than a fourth of the employment picture on those islands.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/127791#ixzz17J7JMMtJ
I understand that the last thing that you would think would help, but maybe lowering minimum wage would help. Were losing jobs due to companies moving for cheaper labor everyday.
In the American Samoa's we raised minimum wage and the tuna companies left, killing employment all over the island as you can see here.
Now look, Minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.50 last time I checked. Companies are moving out of the countries looking for cheaper work every where. In my opinion getting paid a little is better then getting paid nothing.
What's everyone's take on this?
It was nice to be hearing something positive amid all the current sadness until the announcer mentioned in passing how the economy of that South Pacific territory had been ruined by a minimum wage mandate from Congress.
What? Could it be that Congress had again found a way to wreck people's lives?
I looked it up. It is true. In 2007, Congress bypassed the usual method of having the Labor Department adjust American Samoan wage minimums and dictated that the current $3.76 for canning fish would increase to $7.25 in stages by 2014. It wasn't all that long before Chicken of the Sea said goodbye, we're gone, have fun.
That meant a loss of 2,041 jobs right there, and the next thing you knew, Star Kist was also reducing jobs, and if you think a couple of thousand jobs here and another thousand or two there don't mean anything, understand that when you put all the possible losses together, you are talking about more than a fourth of the employment picture on those islands.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/127791#ixzz17J7JMMtJ
I understand that the last thing that you would think would help, but maybe lowering minimum wage would help. Were losing jobs due to companies moving for cheaper labor everyday.
In the American Samoa's we raised minimum wage and the tuna companies left, killing employment all over the island as you can see here.
Now look, Minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.50 last time I checked. Companies are moving out of the countries looking for cheaper work every where. In my opinion getting paid a little is better then getting paid nothing.
What's everyone's take on this?