How Raising the Minimum Wage Will Affect You – Episode 244

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[00:03] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast, fresh alternative personal finance talk for independent thinkers who prosper outside of Wall Street. Here’s your host, bestselling author, Kim D.H. Butler. Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Kim Butler, are you there with me? Yes, I am. Excellent. Well, today we are talking about minimum wage and how it’s been increased throughout the United States. And it depends on who you talk to. Some people are happy and some people are mad and some are just throwing their hands up in the air and saying, why, why, why? So let’s talk about this, Kim. Well, it is an interesting area and I almost wish my husband, Todd Lingford, was on with this because he taught me something that somehow I missed in economics class

[00:57] and so I’ll share it. Maybe it will be valuable to people. And that is that when the minimum wage goes up, it impacts in a beneficial way those that are working for minimum wage for about a month. And that is during which the time that all the corporations and the providers of goods and services are forced to increase their prices because they have also workers that are now being paid a higher minimum wage. And so all the prices go up and then everybody’s back to the exact same level. And so this is such a misunderstood economic principle. This is not a political thing. This is basic economic principle at play at work. And it’s a very, very difficult thing for some reason for some people to understand.

[01:56] But again, I think it’s because emotions get involved and they just don’t really think it’s through. I completely agree that it is totally misunderstood. And so once this passes and we’ve got cities like Seattle, I believe they’re up to $15 an hour. Sunnyvale, California is $15 an hour. How is that going to affect people that are on a fixed income? People that are retired? Well, it’s absolutely going to make their lives worse because they don’t get that much of an increase. The social security increases, whatever, 2% or something, barely keeping pace with inflation. And so you’ve got somebody on a fixed income and then somebody younger with more capability, more energy, more time to do stuff, not more time, but I guess more

[02:44] energy and capability, and they’re earning more money. And so it is extremely detrimental to those that don’t have the ability. Let’s say somebody is just physically not able to work anymore because if they are physically able to work, they really should be out finding jobs, providing services, doing good in the world. Even something like Seniors Helping Seniors, that’s such an awesome website. It’s this really cool system of senior citizens that are helping senior citizens, sometimes for pay, sometimes not. But it’s people that work at a particular pace and have a particular gift to provide. Maybe somebody is really good at balancing checkbooks, or I guess that’s still done these days, or online banking as an example.

[03:29] And somebody else is totally happy and capable of driving to the grocery store. And so they trade services. I mean, that’s a great way for that person to get helped. Got a little squirrel that I chased there for a minute on the Seniors Helping Seniors website. But it is something back to minimum wage that is just not really understood by most people. And everybody wants their minimum wage higher, but then they don’t realize what’s happening to the corporations that are paying the minimum wage. Yeah, it’s actually changing it. I remember seeing the big push specifically with fast food restaurants. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. You’re in a smaller town, but a lot of the McDonald’s have moved to the

[04:10] computer screens. And that’s that’s happening in other areas where now technology is replacing workers. Do you see it to continue that way? Oh, without a doubt, because the technology doesn’t have a bad day, doesn’t get in a bad attitude, doesn’t need to care for a child, etc, etc. And yeah, there’s like Hilton hotels, some of their front desk people are now literally robots. And of course, you know, as we know, a lot more screens, a lot more capability because that gives humans freedom to go do what they love and to do what they’re good at and to create with the robots. It’s not that the robots are going to take over every single aspect of our lives. They can’t no matter how good they make their hands or their ability

[05:02] to feel or what have you, there’s still going to be some jobs that are better done by humans or better done in combination. Just think of the care jobs like nurses and that kind of thing. You may work with a robot that lifts your patient so that you can do the more human things like bathing or whatever. You know, just as an example of working with a robot as opposed to feeling like they’re they’re taking over. And so, you know, think about a restaurant, you know, maybe, you know, this is my perspective, maybe the robot is doing the cooking because that’s boring and the human is just out front greeting everybody and the screens are fussing with the credit cards and the actual details of ordering. I mean, it would actually be a benefit and a win win to

[05:48] everybody. Again, it’s point of view, it’s mindset. It’s how you’re choosing to look at it. It’s so true. Now we have a mutual person that we have a lot of respect for that always thinks with this eye of innovation. That’s Peter Diamandis. And he is one to abundantly think. And so I’m going to ask the question of how would Peter approach this subject? Well, without a doubt, he is a huge believer in the capability of artificial intelligence and robotics and all kinds of things where technology is going to play a role. And so one of the reasons that I absolutely love paying attention to his emails. So if you’re curious about this, you can go to Peter Diamandis dot com. It’s D I A M A N D I S and sign up for his weekly emails.

[06:45] I also attend his event every year, which is just coming up here in another couple of weeks. So we’ll have a fun two or three, probably podcasts after that. There’s tons of information that I learned there. But part of the reason that I make the time and spend the money to go is because of the good news and the good perspective and the positive point of view around technology that I get. Because, yes, it is going to be disruptive. Yes, it’s going to be messy as we grow into it. And yet there is so much good, so much capability, so much opportunity in his perspective helps me adopt that positive point of view, that attitude of, yes, this is going to be good. And let me keep digging until I figure out how it’s going to be good.

[07:35] You know, I think that if you think of it from that perspective, as I’ve been listening, it makes me almost think that raising the minimum wage is a huge benefit for all of us because it’s forcing innovation without doing that. It almost lets us become a little bit more stagnant. But by putting that pinch on business owners, it’s forcing them to innovate, to think a little bit more cleverly. Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective, because I hadn’t really thought about it that way. I love that. And yet it is so easy to see it as a negative. But when you look at the innovation that it might drive, then it is potentially a positive. And the good that can come out of that in the entrepreneurial world,

[08:22] because I do believe that entrepreneurial worlds are going to be more and more how things get done, because it’s the entrepreneurial companies that can pivot quicker, move faster, adjust more efficiently and effectively than the really huge, large corporate behemoths. And so that innovation often takes place in the entrepreneurial world before it does in the corporations. So before we end, I want to add a couple of resources. To think a little bit more abundantly and think a little bit more with innovation. And so a couple of the resources that I have written down is MIT. So MIT is one of the top schools in the world. I mean, what they have done for math and for engineering and artificial intelligence is just incredible.

[09:16] And so many of their classes are online for free for anyone in the world to consume. So I want to suggest that we’ll put that in the show notes. Another valuable resource is something like Khan Academy. So if you have children that are looking to improve in their skills or if you’re looking to improve in skills, that’s another place where you can learn coding languages or you can learn new math or engineering or things like that. Can you think of other resources that are innovative, that are abundant, that anyone can now access? Well, again, I would add Peter Diamandis to the list. I know you’ll put that on there as well, because you want to sign up for his free weekly email. And then I love just any of the online learning.

[10:05] So Udemy that we talked about on another podcast is another good place. I do also want to point out that Khan Academy, I know, has a personal finance section and there are some very incorrect things on there. Oh, yeah. Be on the lookout for that. And be on the lookout for our own prosperity economics movement’s effort at putting out some good personal finance training online that people can take. I’m not going to say a promised date, but we do have our person tagged that’s got some online learning content and curriculum creation experience. And we’re very much looking forward to making that available to all of our listeners and also to advisors to use with their clients as well. That’s great.

[10:56] I’m going to plug one last thing. And it is something that both you and I are proud of. And that is this podcast. I mean, we are well over 200 episodes in. And every single episode, there is something that you can learn. And the podcast is free. You can listen on your phone, in your car, on your computer. Absolutely. And I would really encourage people to go back and start at the beginning. And like you said, there’s something good in every single one of them. And it’s not that they build per se, like you could definitely listen to them out of order without much trouble. There’s occasionally part ones and part twos. But for the most part, it’s pieces of learning. And yet we did start at the beginning with a foundation of the seven principles of prosperity

[11:45] and some other things that we feel are really critical to begin one’s mindset and adoption of an abundance mindset, but all as it relates specifically to your personal finances. So thank you for bringing that up, Spencer. It’s a great idea. Yeah. And for our listeners that are going through the different episodes, you also know that as a valuable listener, you can ask questions. You can send those emails to hello at partnersforprosperity.com. And then Kim also has several audiobooks and ebooks that you can get. Do you have a suggestion of one that people can jump off and read? Yeah, that’s a great question. So I will say that the best one to start with, if you haven’t gotten into any of our books yet,

[12:35] is only available at partners number four, prosperity.com slash ebook. And it’s called Financial Planning Has Failed. And there are audiobooks on Amazon for all of our other material. And so I really don’t have a particular order on those. They’re all good. It would just depend on what you are most interested in. But definitely dig. Sometimes Amazon doesn’t make it super clear that there are audio versions, but there are absolutely audio versions of all of our books on Amazon. Well, as a listener, we want to thank you for spending some time with us today. And yes, things are changing. There’s different political agendas. There’s things that happen when Trump and Trump’s finance plan. And yes, the minimum wage is increasing,

[13:24] but innovation is increasing at a greater rate. And abundance is what will drive all of us. And we want to thank you for being a listener here on the Prosperity Podcast. And we do also have a special request for you. If you haven’t already subscribed to the podcast, make sure you push that button inside of your Apple Podcasts or inside of other podcast platforms like Spotify. And do us a favor. If you like the show, we would love to hear your reviews and let us know what you think. Thank you so much for being with us. Any parting words, Kim? Just keep up your good thinking. It is the number one thing that you can control. Thank you, Kim. Take care. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast.

[14:17] To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit us at partnersforprosperity.com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.