How The Minimum Wage Is KILLING Jobs

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Minimum wage might feel good—but it’s killing jobs.
In this episode of Watchdog on Wall Street, we expose the political theater behind wage hikes:

• Nancy Pelosi’s exemption scandal
• Why California’s $20/hour mandate wiped out 18,000 jobs
• The real value of minimum wage jobs—learning, discipline, growth
• How automation replaces workers when wages go too high
• Why every job matters—especially the one that teaches you to show up

Forget the slogans. If you really want opportunity, start by ditching the minimum wage lies. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Minimum wage mallarchy. Ah yeah. People love talking about the
minimum wage like it's some sort of magic elixir. The
Left loves to bring it up all the time. I've
written countless columns about it. I remember one going back
co was like two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
Nancy Pelosi jumping up and down about raising the minimum wage. Actually,

(00:36):
in her bill that she put forward, she actually wrote
in an exemption for the island nation of Samoa, because,
as it turns out, she had a major investment in
the Starkiss cannery that was there and didn't want the
workers at the cannery actually getting the minimum wage that
she was proposing. Anyway, neither here, there nor there. Minimum

(00:58):
wage is a diculous construct. Businesses will pay people what
they're worth. Businesses will fight for great employees that do
a great job, and we'll spend a great deal of
money to keep them. That's just the reality. I am
a business owner. Are there some bad business owners out there? Yeah,

(01:21):
but then you know what takes care of them, the
free market, creative destruction. You'll go out of business. It's
just the way it is. State of California supersized. It's
a minimum wage to twenty dollars an hour for employees
in fast food restaurants. They've lost eighteen thousand jobs in

(01:46):
that industry over that period of time. And again you'll
hear people on the left.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Well, it's just a minimum wage job. Yeah, it's a
big deal, a minimum wage job. And then they'll start
talking about the living wage. Let me tell you a
little something about minimum wage jobs, jobs in fast food restaurants.
And again I'm dating myself. Maybe I'm getting a little
nostalgia for the good old days. What was it from

(02:16):
fast times at Ridgemont High was the great American burger there.
It was the place where Spacoli came in with no shirt.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
No shirt, no shoes, no noise anyway. I held many
minimum wage jobs coming home from Christmas break from college. Oh,
go get a job at the mall. Mall was busy
over Christmas. All minimum wage jobs. Those are jobs to

(02:48):
make an extra buck and also to learn to learn,
so then you eventually move up the ladder and a
great scene coming to America there with Louis Anderson. There, Hey, Hi,
I was like you guys, I was mopping floors. Now
I'm on Lettuce. Next year I make fries and I

(03:10):
make assistant manager and that's when the big bucks start
rolling in again. That obviously film nineteen eighties novel concept. Well,
what's going to happen is you're going to see raise
wages to a certain point in time. You're going to
see more automation, You're going to see more automation, and
you'll see these jobs go away. And quite frankly, it's

(03:32):
a shame, shame, because every job is a good job
if you're learning something, and you're learning some sort of skill,
whether it be responsibility, showing up on time, seeing how
a business is run. The countless jobs that I've held
over my entire life quite frankly better than college classes.
To be quite honest with you. You take that minimum

(03:55):
wage job when you're younger, and you looking at look
at it as a tool to further your career, You've got,
my friend, the right mindset. The whole concept of minimum
wage is absolute malarkey watchdog on Wall street dot Com