Keeping people poor: a higher priority than inflated healthcare cost

Why is the Minnesota Supreme Court wasting its time ruling against the $15.00 minimum wage, making sure the poor stay poor? Why prioritize such a case? What is their motivation? This needs to be addressed.

We need to know why the state’s highest court would take time to keep minimum wage workers in their place, while the healthcare industry is completely out of control. The healthcare industry has the highest paid individuals in the state, with CEOs making over 50 million dollars. Costs are rising rapidly, drug companies are gouging people, and now health insurance policies will rise from 37 to 67 percent in 2017. Why is a little extra money in the pockets of low-wage earners such a problem for the Supreme Court, but the millions pocketed in inflated profits by the healthcare industry is not?

The Star Tribune opposes the $15-an-hour minimum wage because, they say, “Many employers would no doubt adjust to the arbitrarily high $15 minimum by raising prices, cutting jobs or both. That would cause a disproportionate amount of pain for the lower-income people whom advocates of the $15 wage are trying to help.” The nerve of the Tribune, trying to tell low-income people that having more money in their pockets would actually be bad for them, even as rents and healthcare costs soar. Where do they get their information?

Using the Star Tribune’s logic, anyone making above the current minimum wage, like those on their editorial board, are themselves causing their employers to raise prices and cut jobs. Really? Simple math would show that the more greed in the healthcare industry, the higher the price of health care.

This is what is causing so much hardship for people. Yet the Supreme Court challenges and helps defeat the $15-an-hour livable wage. Are the Supreme Court and the Tribune working for the good of the common people or for someone else?

Frank Erickson lives in Minneapolis.