What to Know: Writing in the Washington Examiner, Brad Polumbo says that many of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ policies will hurt workers. “Take, for instance, Sanders’ fight for a mandatory, $15 dollar federal minimum wage, the policy he used most of his speaking time at the Wednesday meeting to promote,” Polumbo writes. “On its face, this sounds like it would benefit workers. But think about it. Walmart currently provides a wide variety of low-skill employment: clerks, cashiers, managers, and laborers. Many of these jobs are already on the path toward automation, and nothing will get them there faster than a sudden 50% or 75% increase in labor costs for all low-skill workers. Consider McDonalds. That company, which arguably originated the fast-food industry, is revolutionizing it once again by introducing automated ordering kiosks in a third of its locations, replacing many cashier jobs.” The TPPF Take: Minimum wage hikes are always destructive. “When we artificially raise the minimum wage, we eliminate lower-wage, lower-skill jobs, while benefiting higher-wage engineers and computer programmers,” says TPPF’s Elliott Raia. “Hikes hurt the people they’re supposed to be helping. Instead, government should let people prosper by getting out of the way, so that workers’ benefits and technological advances are based on markets, not mandates.”

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