Who didn’t see THIS coming? California janitors now want $30 an hour.

Photo above - man whacks a prototype robot with a lead pipe. The robot does NOT turn and kill him. Instead, the robot announces its intent to replace $30/hour human janitors.

Earlier this year Governor Newsom signed into a law a $20 minimum wage for burger flippers. Immediately thousands of healthcare workers – mostly employed at government clinics and hospitals – demanded a raise from $16 to $20. They threatened to quit their jobs and go flip burgers if their demands weren't met. Well, shouldn’t someone who works in healthcare get paid more than a dropout at the Taco Bell drive thru?

Enter California’s janitors. And hotel workers. And airport baggage handlers. They are convinced that their work is worth $30 an hour. And California politicians agree. A bill is wending its way through the legislature in Sacramento to do just that. See link below.

I can do something about $20 burger flippers: just stop buying those 2,500-calorie big mac, fries, and soda combos. In this regard Newsom’s fast food minimum wage hike might be considered a public health measure, no? In fact, burger places are dropping like fries . . . er, I mean flies . . . with the new wage hike. And taxpayer funded unemployment payments to burger flippers are no doubt skyrocketing. Maybe all this is contributing to California’s $73 billion budget crisis?

Actually, I’m MORE worried about the janitors. They’re already on thin ice. I have a Roomba. There’s a similar self-docking, rechargeable device which scrubs kitchen and bathroom floors. My supermarket has a cleanup robot for spills. None of these cost $30 an hour to operate.

Airport baggage handlers are an endangered species too. Airlines have priced carryon luggage surcharges to the moon, so only infrequent fliers - or the weak and infirm - try to check a bag now. If you think baggage handlers are victims, google “stolen luggage ring nabbed.”

You can't live on $20 an hour in California (really, you CAN’T). Someone will probably struggle on $30 an hour too. But both of these wages are above the (approx.) $1,000 - $1,200 basic minimum income contemplated for dropouts without skills or the inclination to show up on time. $30 an hour for a 40-hour workweek comes $1,200 a week (check my math, please).

California has the highest taxes, highest electricity rates, highest gasoline, highest groceries, and probably the highest shoplifting rates in the 48 continuous states. There is no way that’s going to change if politicians play whack a mole, granting new minimum wage hikes month by month. All that’s going to do is lure moronic janitors and baggage handlers and burger flippers to migrate from flyover states to California. Because $30 an hour ($1,200 a week, $60,000 a year) looks like a fortune if you live in West Virginia or Arkansas. Until they actually arrive and realize how expensive everything in California is. And end up living in a donated tent, on the sidewalk.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

~California Crisis: Workers Now Demand $30 An Hour (msn.com)~