A Long Bat and a Cold Brew

I hate to dignify these kinds of people by mentioning their names and giving them even more air-time, but sometimes it is a necessary evil to call these guys out.

Candidate for U.S. Senator from Virginia, Ed Gillespie, is the former Republican National Chairman and political adviser to president George W. Bush and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He went on to make millions as a corporate lobbyist on Capital Hill.

At a meet and greet with voters, Gillespie weighed in on the federal minimum wage bill. Referring to minimum wage jobs, he said, "It’s where you learn the social aspect of work, where you play on a softball team."

That's right. People struggling to keep a roof over their children's heads and put food on the table, who lie awake at night worrying about how to pay their medical bills before the creditors start calling, have the consolation of playing short-stop on Wednesday nights.

Ignoring the fact that most minimum wage workers rely on these paychecks as their only source of income, Gillespie stated, "It’s where you learn the great feeling at the end of getting that paycheck and knowing you gave an honest week’s work."

Young people, with their boundless energy and creativity, find that after the end of the week, "that paycheck" is not enough to venture out on their own. But that's okay because you and your other carefree co-workers can "go for a beer after work."

He goes on to say, "A lot of them are first time workers, it’s the first job they’ve ever had." An entire generation now in their twenties and thirties, floundered during the Great Recession, and minimum wage jobs were all they could get, if they were even that lucky.

This attitude downplays the fact that a large percentage of minimum wage workers have taken these jobs after being laid-off from long-time, higher salary careers. Gillespie refers to "second-earners in the family." Second-earners are people working to keep their family units above the poverty line. Senior citizens work past retirement age to supplement their meager Social Security check. But to Gillespie, "A minimum wage job is where you learn to get to work on time."

Minimum wage workers strain to make ends meet. Their jobs are thankless and often ridiculed. The work is physically and emotionally demanding. But there is the "great feeling" and "social aspect."

Gillespie says, "We want to...incentivize work in this country."