Sacramento lawmakers consider a bill that would price teenage burger flippers out of their jobs.
Your columnist has a confession to make. Many summers ago, I worked at a Wendy’s. I was young, and I needed the money. I was not proud of myself and carefully chose a location well outside of town to ensure that no one I knew would ever see me working there. I was living a double life. Not even my closest friends knew that a burger flipper was among them.
The Wendy’s job was one of any number I held, often simultaneously, in my teens. I was also a dishwasher at an Italian restaurant and a stock boy at a supermarket. While in college, I drove a delivery truck for Frito-Lay and worked the overnight shift at a gas-station minimart. Collectively, these early jobs taught me the importance of being punctual, helped me develop respect for supervision, and gave me the pride and self-respect that come with being financially independent. What these jobs also had in common is that the starting pay was at, or just above, minimum wage.
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. He is the author of the recent book “The Black Boom.”
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal