This is so awesomely typical. A Maine “advocacy” group that is fighting to get the state minimum wage raised from $7.50 an hour to $12 an hour thinks you need more money:

From McClatchy DC:

“Low pay is not OK. Maine families work hard and should be able to earn a fair wage. It’s not right that a single mother of two can work full time and still not make ends meet for her family,” Maine People’s Alliance states on their website.

And from the Fair Wage Maine website:

Increasing the minimum wage to $12 would help one in four working moms in Maine […] When you work for a living, you should be able to make a living.

Got it? It’s not right, you’re not being treated fairly. And specifically, anything less than 12 dollars is injustice. That’s the fight.

And the fight is going well enough that they’ve actually got some open positions. Jobs, you see, that they have advertised. There’s just one problem.

Bill McMorris as the Free Beacon explains:

The group posted an advertisement on Craigslist hoping to recruit canvassers and community organizers to “Work toward a fair minimum wage for Maine.” Prospective candidates must be willing to work about 20 hours a week for a starting wage of $429 every two weeks, which works out to about $10 an hour.

“The Phone Canvasser/Organizers are responsible for acting as a communications liaison between MPA and our members, and will engage in grassroots fundraising, member development, and voter education,” the post says.

How awesome. They’ve since changed the listing to show the offer at $12/hour, but not before everyone found out about it. Michael Saltsman of the free market Employment Policies Institute called them out.

“The Maine Peoples Alliance and the ‘Mainers for Fair Wages’ coalition have been unyielding in their quest for a $12 minimum wage,” he said. “It’s shocking to see the Alliance now hiring young people to canvass for a $12 minimum wage at an effective hourly starting rate closer to $10. The reported availability of bonuses to bring employees above $12 is no excuse, given that the Alliance is campaigning on the logic that employers can’t count anything other than employees’ hourly wages as income.”

Amazing. Paying people ten bucks an hour to walk around telling everyone how anything less than twelve an hour hurts people and communities. That is a special kind of hilarious hypocrisy.

Embarrassing.