Medicine and health care have always been high. But the thing that first started to effect me directly, and probably you too, is the the high price of gasoline. Then food prices started creeping up. Now home prices and rents are basically outrageous.
But the worst has yet to come, particularly for small businesses and consumers like you and me. The federal minimum wage, previously at $5.15 an hour, went up to $5.85 last summer, and this summer, starting on July 24, will go up to $6.55 an hour. And next summer minimum wage rises to $7.25 an hour.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people making a living, and Lord knows with the way the prices of everything has gone up, one can't make it on $5.85 an hour. But the effect won't be marginal, but widespread on the way we currently live.
As the minimum wage goes up, so does the cost of a $5 value meal at McDonalds. You think Adriens or Piggly Wiggly or Wal-Mart or Albertsons or Winn Dixie or whomever isn't going to pass that cost on to me and you.
Put any business in the blank space here ____, and the cost of goods or services from that business is going to go up starting July 24 this year, and next.
I don't have the stats right in front of me, but I know generally, since we got over the oil bust of the 80s, the economy red line has been going up, with one major exception, and that is wages.
People, particularly those on the lower portions of the rung, will make more money. But they also will be spending a whole lot more of what they earn. Particulary if they want to go fishing with a box of worms.
