The College Conservative contributor Joseph Schartz has a problem when someone promotes a minimum wage hike in the name of young Americans such as himself.

The day after the November election, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader ran a story on South Dakota’s monstrous minimum wage increase.  It quoted 54 year-old voter Mary Gripentrog, who spoke on behalf of every misguided person who voted for the minimum wage measure: “I know a fair amount of young people. I think it’s fair to raise it for them.”

Don’t do this to me, Mary.

More than 55% of South Dakotans voted for the measure. It was the only vote that could have possibly rained on my parade that night, and boy did it pour. Other red states that overwhelmingly passed minimum wage increases included Nebraska, Arkansas, and Alaska.  The minimum wage was the only thing that Democrats could smile about after their historic defeat.

How and why does a state like South Dakota approve a minimum wage increase with an inflationary mechanism that will lead to additional increases every single year? Thankfully, we have answers–even if they stink. The South Dakota Democratic Party sponsored the job-killing measure, explaining on its website its rationale for supporting one of the most irrational concepts in economics.  While the word “socialism” was not stated on the page outright, Karl Marx’s sticky fingerprints could be seen throughout.  According the SDDP, here are the four main reasons we should support a minimum wage increase:

1. “Valuing hard work.” If the goal of a minimum wage is to attach value to hard work, even if it is a value the marketplace clearly does not attach to it, why stop at $8.25? …

2. “Workers with more money will spend it on the things their families need everyday. That generates new business and grows the economy.” What do Democrats think businesses spend money on?  Ironically, businesses spend their money on employees, many of whom will now be fired and make less than $8.25 an hour. …

3. “Promoting economic fairness.”  The Democrats lament CEO pay, saying it is 273 times higher than the average American worker.  …

… This president has not fostered the kind of economic atmosphere that creates innovators and entrepreneurs.  The linguistic skill level of a student entering the job market today must only be advanced enough to ask, “Do you want fries with that?”After young people around the country have been fired, valuable work experience has been lost, and businesses have been choked, the age-old debate can continue: Do liberals actually believe they are helping people, or is there a method to their methodical destruction of western capitalism?

Welcome to the Obama economy.  There are no refunds.