On Tuesday of this week it was the anniversary of the “Fight for $15 Campaign”, which is an effort to get minimum wage up to $15 in America. A crowd of 350 people gathered around a McDonald’s in New York where 25 protesters got themselves arrested. Dozens more were arrested across the US as thousands demonstrated in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Houston, and Minneapolis as they disrupted traffic and service at some of the biggest airports in the country.
Sadly, none of these people realize that raising the minimum wage is not a solution to their problem.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and there are currently 29 states with a minimum wage higher than that. Several cities have now put in legislation that will increase their minimum wage to $15 over the next few years, including San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. On July 1, 2018, San Francisco will be the first official place to reach $15 an hour. Arizona, Colorado, and Maine will also incrementally increase their minimum wages to $12 an hour by 2020.
Look, the first thing you get when you raise minimum wage is more people on minimum wage. If you want a whole country on minimum wage just raise it to $20. Why don’t we go to $30, what does it matter? Prices will skyrocket. That hamburger you eat, that milkshake you get at Wendy’s, that clean salad you ordered over at Taco Bell where the pissed off guy making $8 licks the shells—all those things will get much more expensive when you raise the price of the hourly person.
The truth is minimum wage is not a solution to anybody’s problem. The only solution to a person’s problem is their own productivity, their creativity, and their ability to separate themselves in the marketplace and be great so that nobody would want to pay them minimum wage. No government, no congress, no senate, and no president can help you if you’re on minimum wage. Even at $15 you need more money. You folks on minimum wage—I know how tough it is. I worked at McDonalds, and I didn’t deliver. I wasn’t worth the $7 bucks they paid me—or I guess it was $3 back then. I wasn’t great so they fired me and replaced me with someone else willing to work for $3 who would hustle.
That’s why you have to get great. Get great at the job you have. If you can’t get great at a job you hate, you’ll never get great at a job you love. Whether you are a fast-food restaurant worker, child-care worker, a driver, a shipper, or a cashier, your minimum wage job is not the problem. Raising things to $15 an hour will result in lost jobs, reduced hours and business closures. Instead of focusing on what others must give you, set your mind on what you can give others. A welfare mentality will never get you an abundance in life.
Whether you make minimum wage or $50,000 a year, it’s not enough, and neither is $80,000. You must learn to increase your income drastically. I go into detail about this in my Wealth Creation Formula. If you can’t afford that, get my Millionaire Booklet. If you really want to invest in yourself, check out Cardone University. Anyone who goes through these programs will not live on minimum wage or even consider it an option any longer because it not only gives you real world skills—it gives you a new mindset.
Today is the last day I’m offering one-on-one coaching. If you want to sit down and meet with me, this is your chance.
Be great,
GC
