RUSH: Robert in northern New Jersey, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Yes. Good afternoon! I’m proud to talk to you about a situation. It’s a comparative analysis about a truth about the $15 an hour. If you have a person working in the burger field on an annual salary of $31,200 and a soldier on an army salary of $25,913, that’s a sergeant of two years’ experience. It’s a difference of what skills are needed. I got a problem with that.
RUSH: Okay. Let me make sure I understand. By “the burger field,” you mean a burger flipper?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: And a burger flipper at 15 an hour is making $31,000 a year?
CALLER: Thirty-one two.
RUSH: Do you know any such people making $31,000 a year flipping burgers?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: I don’t either.
CALLER: Well, it’s gonna happen in Washington State. That’s the problem. It’s gonna start
RUSH: Okay, so you mean the minimum wage is gonna be applied, and if they’re given enough hours, the burger flipper could end up making $31,000 a year whereas an American soldier will only make $25,000?
CALLER: That’s like a sergeant with two years of experience.
RUSH: Sergeant two years. So you’re comparing the relative worth?
CALLER: Yeah, and you got one week training for a program, testing for basic stills and restaurant procedure — and here you go in an Army guy. It’s 10 weeks basic training, physical stress, map reading, drill ceremonies and land navigation, problem solving, all of this, and then the workplace hazard for him includes death, dismemberment, loss of limbs, disability, PTSD. I can go on and on, and they’re deployed 6,000 miles away from home for months at a time.
RUSH: True. All true. But it’s voluntary.
CALLER: I agree. I agree. So is working, the way we’ve done it today.
RUSH: What do you think is the solution?
CALLER: What do I think is the solution?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: We don’t pay it. I don’t see $15 an hour. It’s gonna be crazy.
RUSH: We’re not paying soldiers $15 an hour, and if we’re gonna pay burger flippers $15 an hour we should pay soldiers $15 an hour?
CALLER: Soldiers should be getting $25 an hour if a burger flipper’s gonna get $15. Think about it.
RUSH: (pause) I’m thinking about it.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: I don’t know where this kind of thing stops, though.
CALLER: Yeah, I agree. I agree 100%.
RUSH: Once you start making value judgments like this.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I mean, okay, let’s do the old argument about, “What do you mean, A-Rod gets $25 million versus Mrs. Small teaching my kid how to read? What’s really more important?”
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. But I’m looking at the vulnerability of one field versus another.
RUSH: You’ve obviously just had really bad experiences with people at fast-food restaurants and you have a built-in animosity toward them.
CALLER: Who, me?
RUSH: Just kidding.
CALLER: Oh, okay. Oh, I know. I feel sorry for ’em also, but it’s a steppingstone job. It’s not a lifetime situation. It shouldn’t be.
RUSH: I know, but what would you do about it? Would you reestablish, “Okay, if you’re gonna flip burgers, the most you can make is $20,000 a year because you’ve gotta make less than a soldier”? Would that be what you would say?
CALLER: No, I would work! I’ve come the hard way. I’ve worked two jobs, three jobs. I mean, you can’t just work one job if you only gonna get paid $20,000 a year.
RUSH: But that’s what soldiers do.
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So they really are underpaid. That’s a fact.
RUSH: I don’t disagree with that at all. But again, it’s private sector versus public.
CALLER: Yep. I agree. I agree. I was just making a comparative analysis, and, you know, it’s the world as it is.
RUSH: But it’s really not different. I mean, that’s not new. Soldiers have always… My God, they’re way underpaid, no matter who you compare them to, especially when you figure that they make up less than one-tenth of 1% of the population, and they volunteer to do it. I mean, if you’re gonna look at it that way, there’s no way you could justify what they’re paid, but they do it. The burger-flipper thing? You know, that’s just social activists and community organizers intimidating the fast food industry, is all that is.
They’re not being paid what anybody thinks they’re worth. They’re being paid what they have to pay ’em to keep ACORN off their back. Anyway, I know, there’s injustice everywhere out there. You can go nuts thinking about it. This is one of the reasons, by the way, why we here always have had such great respect and reverence for people in the military, and honor them every which way we can, and it’s because they volunteer knowing everything about what they’re getting into.
They volunteer for it.
That’s why I just cringe when these people are made fun of, impugned by the left. They’re criticized. They make the choice to join the military, and the left will say, “They do that because America’s economy sucks! There’s nothing for them, or they’re a bunch of dumb hayseeds in the first place and it’s the only way they can get an education, because America’s so unfair.” I’ve never understood that. Why put them down? Except the left considers the military the focus of evil in the world, but it’s not something that’s really brand-new. I appreciate the call.
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