Bernie’s Jobs-for-All Nonsense

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ new big idea: Have Uncle Sam offer a $15-an-hour job (with benefits) to anyone who wants one. First question: Why’d he wait until unemployment was down to 4.1 percent, rather than offer this when it was 10 percent?

It can’t be the expense: His people admit they have no idea what it would cost, or where the cash would come from.

The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle did a quick estimate, starting with the fact that 25 million to 50 million US workers don’t earn that much now ($15 is more than the median wage in much of the country).

She figures the cost would be a trillion or two a year, “rivaling or exceeding our total expenditure on Social Security, with maybe Medicaid thrown in for good measure.”

That’s on top of the red ink the feds are already hemorrhaging.

Nor, she notes, does Washington actually have work for all these hires to actually do.

Sadly, Sanders’ ideas have a way of catching on with the Democratic base: His $32 billion health-care plan had zero cosponsors back in 2013; now a third of Democrats in the Senate, and two-thirds in the House, have signed on.

Heck, the jobs-for-all plan already has the backing of 2020 hopefuls Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cory Booker (D-NJ).

It’s as if Democrats have stopped caring about making sense — showing you “care” is all that counts.