WAGES: Here's the beef

Brave Shelley Williams asks an important question: “Why can’t I attract more workers at $9 an hour to clean houses?”

Short answer? $9 is not enough. You can’t live on $15,000 a year. Not even close. And it isn’t even minimum wage 3 miles west of me in Washington.

I paid two gals $160 to clean my two bedroom/two bath house for about three hours. Yes, house cleaning or any service pays better when you work directly for the customer.

In 1990, I couldn’t pay my $700 mortgage or support my wife and two kids on $15 an hour working as a carpenter. So I worked directly for homeowners on their 10,000-square-foot house and made $20 an hour, then I got my contractors license and made $30 or $40.

But if Shelley’s underemployed employee has kids they would qualify for Earned Income Credit’s annual windfall of cash, food stamps, Obamacare (if they’re smart enough to live in Washington), child care credits and likely Section 8 housing assistance too.

Isn’t it strange how we all both loathe and utilize socialism?

MIKE RENO

Post Falls