Shit People on Twitter Say (about minimum wage in New York)

Debate about minimum wage in New York State has been renewed and it’s likely to be a hot button issue in the next legislative session.

Kristi Barlette, the Times Union’s Features Editor, weekly columnist, and blogger of important topics like such as pictures of anonymous butts on the subway and questionairre memes, tweeted her thoughts on the matter this morning:

Included Mike Goodwin's response because it was hilarious.

Naturally, this purely anecdotal, out-of-context dismissal of the opposition to her views rubbed more than a few people the wrong way…

Too much Twama for your Momma

Others were a bit more direct and constructive in their dismissal of her statement:

Hey, poor people! Just get a career already!

Because it is that easy!

There were other replies and rebuttals between her and other users, but I’m not going to bother sharing them here. They’re repetitive and besides, you’ll thank me for sparing you the frustration of seeing people using thought-terminating cliches as an exit from a discussion they provoked. Twitter user @FoFacy went one step further and posted about it on her Tumblr, along with figures and facts and such, and is a much more compelling read anyway.

Barlette never said that it was poor peoples’ fault that they’re poor, but she might as well have as far as many were concerned. My take: I think her comment was a bit too dismissive of the very real concerns people have in regard to this state’s discrepancy between its minimum wage and the rate of inflation and increased cost of living (New York State is far from the worst when it comes to this). Nor do I  buy the argument that it kills jobs or hurts small businesses; as Sheldon Silver noted, the data from states like Washington (which has the highest minimum wage) doesn’t really support that notion.

It also helps to think outside of yourself on issues. It stinks of social darwinism, which I particularly loathe when it’s used in discussion of issues like minimum wage. But that’s a whole other rant.