Meet Hillary Clinton, Champion of Fast Food Workers

Privileged Clinton Continues Quest to Appear Less Out-of-Touch

by Josh Guckert

On Sunday, 2016 Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton told a conference of fast food workers that she supported their efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr, stating, “I want to be your champion.”

The comments come in spite of the fact that when Clinton had an encounter with some real-life fast food workers at Chipotle in April, she declined to leave a tip.

What does Hillary Clinton know about being under-privileged? Not much, based on her employment history. Clinton has had the benefit of growing up with a fairly affluent background. She has spent nearly her entire life in the public sector, and has been able to procure plenty of profit-making opportunities due to she and her husband’s status as public officials.

None of Mrs. Clinton’s good fortunes would necessarily result in an automatic disqualification as a “champion” of non-skilled workers. However, it gives us a more broad window into the kinds of realities which she has and has not experienced. Therefore, when she discusses what it means to be a “blue-collar” worker trying to make ends meet, and then attempts to prescribe to these same people how and when the government should move to make life easier, it is important to note that her experiences have come exclusively from the perspective of the bureaucrat, and not the laborer.

Clinton has been talented enough that she was able to graduate from a highly esteemed law school and become extremely successful. She will never know the reality, for example, of being a black 18-year-old single-mother who is attempting to finish her GED while working at McDonald’s.

This example may seem melodramatic, but it is used particularly because the groups mentioned are those which are most disparately impacted by policies like the minimum wage. In the example, the manager may see in this young woman someone who is a hard worker, but also one who unfortunately has no direction or chance of upward mobility within the company. Then, when the government demands that the McDonald’s pay each worker $15/hr instead of the current $7.25 (which is burdensome enough, particularly when considered alongside any possible mandated benefits), it is likely that the manager will choose to save the jobs of more “promising” or talented workers over those who are less capable.

Most tragic of all is that perhaps this young woman would be willing to contract for any wage just to guarantee a steady flow of income while gaining skills and perhaps searching for a second job in the meantime. However, minimum wage laws make it illegal for her to make that determination on her own.

Economist Walter Williams has pointed out several times that the minimum wage adversely affects black workers. He has even explained that this was the reasoning that, during the apartheid era in South Africa, racist labor unions pursued a minimum wage which would apply to both black and white workers. By forbidding black workers from being able to bargain, the law left those disadvantaged workers out of the labor market. While the intentions today are likely not the same, the effect remains constant.

There should be no doubt that Hillary Clinton has good intentions when she aims to be a champion of the middle-class. However, the policies which she promotes will not raise many workers out of poverty; in fact, much of that which she espouses will doom those whom she is aiming to help. If Mrs. Clinton wishes to liberate millions from the burdens of poverty, she ought to heed the words of one of her earliest heroes Barry Goldwater, when he stated, “I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom.”