Well of course, what with money being "misallocated" and all.

Lets just make it $100 per hour. That way, if you have a job you will be set.

Actually it should be %50

Why not!

None of these people have ever signed a paycheck

If I hire a teen for $9, it costs me about $14 per hour including payroll taxes and workess comp.

I am supposed to make money paying AND TRAINING an unskilled beginner over $110 per day. In the real world (look at teen and intercity unemployment chumps), this doesn´t happpen.

RW: If someone works for awhile at a low wage, they get bumped up fast or let go. At a low wage, it is easier to bring in the casual laboroer for a small job and to give someone a chance to prove they are worth the time and effort to make them productive (starting with losing the cell phone and actually doing the work assigned.)

tom harkin doesnt have good sense....he is retiring....bravo.....my memory of him is when dead was screaming all the states harkin was in the background laughing and clapping....real brainiac..............

DEAN not dead...oops

Every member of congress should be required to attend Junior Achievement classes. They´re totally clueless about business and the economy.

So easily solved....just print enough money to give everyone a million dollars! Then you don´t have to worry about wages, cause no one will have to work!

I should be President...

$9 an hour is too high a pay rate for harkin.

Translation: "No, there is absolutely no correlation between what a worker produces and the business income available from which to pay that worker."

[Yes, there are people that utterly stoopit. Lots uvem.]

Uh, Tommy, if you are making minimum wage, you are in no position to have a family.

There needs to be a competency test for members of Congress.

If we make it a million dollars an hour then we can tax it all away from them and fund a huge increase in government.

Win..win...win.

Minimum wage gov scam!

A competency test? That means we would need a new President, Vice-President, 5 new Supreme Court judges, and probably 500 new members of Congress.

Great idea Harkin!

Raise the minimum wage 24% and I,m sure that consumer prices will not change.

Ever seen a dog chase it´s tail?

That Harkin thinks it is the job of the Federal government to see to it that workers "make ends meet" is Constitutionally confused and unintentionally hilarious. The Federal government is going to "make ends meet" for somebody, somewhere, somehow? THAT Federal government? He ought to be joking. But he is not joking. He is serious.

Democrats always demand more of other people´s money whenever it is a case of "making ends meet," whether on a small or a large scale. The very concept of cutting expenses, tightening the belt, doing without things one would like to have etc. etc. etc. is incomprehensible and unfair to them.

Energy costs are soaring. Those costs are added to the margin of every other product we need, let alone what is not essential.

No, Mr, Harkin. You and your leftwing buddies have succeeded in grinding this economy into the dirt. Only the fierce will of individuals, who cherish their liberty, impels them to continue herculean efforts to keep their businesses operating.

Lightweight Tom Harkin has been living in a fantasy world ever since he survived the stress of flying combat missions over North Vietnam -- or maybe it was the stress caused by keeping track of the lies about those never happened missions.

Either way, he´s leaving the Senate, which will cause that august body´s average IQ to go up a few points.

This statement is a prelude to the 2014 midterm elections. The DEMonsters will be pushing a higher minimum wage next year, thus backing the GOP into yet another corner to betray them as heartless capitalists` only interested in looking out for their rich white corporate raiders.

#12: There are daily competency tests for them. Voters than have the opportunity to pass/fail grade these morons every two years. There are a couple places where that breaks down: a. low voter participation; b. poor Republican leadership; c. huge, undeniable vote fraud; d. widespread corruption that uses rather than attacks such fraud; e. media that help campaigns "be about" pseudo-issues like "macacas" [and why, again, does anyone still put that corrupt Larry Sabato on the air?].

#17: If I may expand from your 2nd paragraph -- put simply, every person, every organization, must and should make "budgeting" decisions. What is the utility [value to me] of what I get for what I am willing to give up in exchange? $500 for a shirt? $3000 for a refrigerator? No. $20,000 for a good car? Yes -- but I must have met other needs first [shelter, food, etc., things of greater "utility," that is, greater necessity] and have enough left to buy the utility that the car provides.

Only gov´t, only those in gov´t, believe there´s no need to do so. Because only they have the power to legally seize your money and mine and apply it to denying the finiteness of available buying power.

So the employer pays $9 bucks an hour. He does? Heck no. Just like taxes on corporations, it´s the consumer who pays if in fact the business can find customers willing and able to pay the higher prices.

Guess it is time to pay all members of congress the minimum wage.

This is a lot of garbage from Harkin - one of those Dem Senators who in four years have yet to produce the budget required by law!

Time to clear out these brainless idiots.

Compared to the aprox. $5.00 an hour seniors get in SS benefits, it seems like a lot.

But, compared to another article about entry level jobs in gov while the military is cut, seems like chicken feed.

Uh....this whole economy started tanking the last time they raised it to $6.55 in 2008