The Cruelty and Carnage of the Minimum Wage: The Case of Tad

Jeffrey Tucker

If your goal is to ruin the lives of young and marginalized population groups, raising the wage floor to $15 an hour is a good plan. Already, much of the current problem with youth unemployment is due to the high minimum wage increases we’ve seen over the last eight years.

After all, the original purpose of the minimum wage was to disemploy undesirables. Not having a job means not participating in the fullness of life. It’s a big deal.

A wage floor of any sort traps people in the economic basement. The higher the floor, the larger the basement. Today, millions are rattling around down there, unable to find their way out. Millions more will find themselves there once all this legislation goes through.

I feel a particular frustration with this issue, and it’s not only because of the economics texts I’ve read.

My first real job was working maintenance at a department store. I was 15 (yes, I lied about my age; you could get away with that back then). My job was to clean toilets, crush boxes, pick pins out of the dressing room closets, wax the floors in the china shop, vacuum the place, and shine the glass.

It was a great job. I mean, truly great. I loved it because it was a hugely important job. If I didn’t clean the bathrooms well and replenish the toilet paper and towels, customers the next day might be grossed out and never come back. I played a big role in ensuring the profitability of this store.

My Coworker Tad

I especially loved my co-worker. His name was Tad. The department store would close, leaving just the two of us to have so much fun doing all this wonderful work. We would sing together, thrill to the danger of the wax machine, gross out at the mucky bathrooms, and just have that wonderful feeling that comes with having a real work partner.

You see, Tad was not a normal kid. He had some physical deformities. His face was oddly shaped and had what looked like a large stain on half of it. He couldn’t move around that well, really. I had to help him and assign tasks carefully. He was also mentally retarded. He spoke in a muffled way, and you had to be very clear about instructions.

But I tell you what, when he was happy, it made me happy. To see that big smile come across his face when I would praise the way he shined up a counter just gave me a huge lift. Every day I would try to find ways for him to be both delighted and productive. We were a wonderful team. I wanted it to stay this way.

One day, a poster appeared in the workroom. It was from the Department of Labor. The minimum wage was going up by 40 cents. Tad pointed the sign out to me. He said, “Look, we are getting a raise!”

I was a bit suspicious. I was pretty sure that the boss was the one who set the wage, not some weird distant government thing. I didn’t quite believe it was true. Still, I was happy that he was happy.

The next day, I showed up at the usual time after school. I was getting the mop ready, running hot water in the pail and prepared to do my thing.

Tad wasn’t there. I asked the boss, “Where’s Tad today?”

Well, he explained that he had hired Tad only because he was a boy he knew from church. He needed work. He knew that he would require a lot of help, which was one reason he was excited that I was able to work with him. In the end, he said, this was charity, because he knew that I could do the job by myself. It worked for us to be together so long as he could afford it. But this new minimum wage changed things. The store’s profit margins were very thin, and the wage requirement applied to the whole staff. So he had to make a hard decision.

The long and short of it: Tad had to be let go.

The Death of Tad

I was devastated. I stared at the Department of Labor sign again. Cursed thing! That sign just ruined a kid’s life. It stopped a great act of charity. And look what it did to me. I now had to work alone.

I suddenly felt guilty about my own job. I kept mine at his expense. And why? It was pure accident of birth.

Management left, the lights dimmed, and I heard the familiar click of the doors leading outside. I would have to clean alone today. I did all the tasks I had to. But there was no more music, no more laughter, no more clowning around, and no more beautiful smiles. Tad was somewhere else, probably at home, confused and sad.

I didn’t call him. I was too embarrased and I didn’t know what to say. So I let our friendship go.

He died a few years later.

This is what the minimum wage means to me. So you can say that I have a vendetta. When the president announces that he is raising wages to make everyone better off, I can’t help but think of the millions of Tads that will lose that opportunity to do wonderful things in this world and with their lives.

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