$15 Now, Raise the Wage, and Governor Kate Brown have some pretty bad ideas about the minimum wage. Yet, somehow I’ve stumbled onto a minimum wage proposal that is worse. It’s worse than putting all of those Democrat minimum wage proposals together and dressing them up like a scary clown.

It all started while reading an article about Cliff Thomason on Oregon Outpost. Thomason is a Independent candidate for Governor. I was reading the interview and came across this line:

[Thomason] was asked about his position on the minimum wage, which is an escalating minimum wage based on age.

Hahahaha. Oh wait. I think he might be serious. Oh dear he is serious. The full proposal is on his website. To be fair his proposal starts out somewhat benign:

For workers up through 20 years of age there would be no state minimum wage. The Federal minimum wage is currently at $7.25, which I believe is appropriate for someone in that age category.

Sounds like a training wage. It’s good for businesses and young people. It’s weird that it's based on age instead of work experience but that can be forgiven. Here's where it gets bad:

Ages 21-30 = $8.50/hr 31-40 = $10.00/hr 41-50 = $12.00/hr 51 and over = $13.50/hr.

Thomason wants to build age-based discrimination into the minimum wage. That's a terrible idea. This is the kind of policy a recent political science major writes when he’s annoyed he can’t get a job. He knows just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to avoiding writing horribly discriminatory laws.

This minimum wage proposal prices older people out of minimum wage jobs. Businesses like McDonald's would only be staffed by young people because the older some is, the more expensive they would be to hire based on stupid minimum wage policy. This idea is highly discriminatory and poorly thought out. Unless people suddenly go crazy while filling out their ballots we should be safe but I’m still going to be on the lookout.