Quote:
Originally Posted by gimpy117
minimum wage is about making sure that workers make a decent wage enough to live on. especially in a economy like this one that would allow employers to pay desperate workers comically low wages.
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No it isn't. It's never been about that, though we tell ourselves it is so we can feel good about it. Try living on minimum wage for a while - if you're single and don't have any kids, you can make it work, albeit somewhat uncomfortably. If you're married or have kids, you're screwed.
The minimum wage is nothing more than a political tool. Wages, prices, and living standards are all things governed by the economy, which answers to no-one. The reason minimum-wage workers don't make enough to live on is simple economic reality. Nobody is going to pay for unskilled services that cost extra due to the fact that workers must be paid a wage they can live on. You can try to make it so, but you'll ultimately end up with no industry at all, or a subsidized industry, which is even worse. Washington knows this, which is precisely why the minimum wage always seems too low, but remains popular.
Not that any of this is a problem. Minimum-wage jobs are minimum-wage because they aren't supposed to be jobs you can live on. They are intended to be entry-level jobs that give a new worker the chance to accumulate experience and earn good references for another job. The companies that provide such jobs are aware of this fact, and anticipate high turnover rates, as evidenced by the lack of benefits provided and high turnover rates.
Somehow, likely due to political machinations, people have turned this simple economic reality into a concept that minimum wage should be a wage people, and even families, can live on. As if that would ever f-ing work. It's as though people have somehow developed the attitude that because employers are "rich", they somehow owe unskilled people a living, notwithstanding narrow profit margins, quarterly performance reports, and a competitive business environment. I'd tell them to go to the Soviet Union, where such thinking was dominant, but it doesn't exist anymore.
Not that there's any need to worry. If the minimum wage were abolished, there would be more entry-level jobs for people who need entry-level jobs, not to mention reasonably-priced goods and excellent investment opportunities, all of which generate economic growth. Some of them probably would pay "comically" low wages, but then, people won't work for comically low wages unless they are comically stupid or unskilled, but there's no reason to worry about that. The market takes care of that all by itself, as evidenced by the abundance of cheap goods and services we already have, and the largely upwards trend in socio-economic mobility.
Whether you buy that or not in the logical sense (and you will actually buy it next time you obtain goods or services from a minimum-wage earner, whether you like it or not), there is also the inevitable economic truth that we are functioning in an increasingly globalized economy. This means that there is more competition to deal with, and therefore, less time and money to waste upon idiotic fantasy dreams of providing living wages to burger-flippers or shelf-stackers everywhere. This ain't the worker's paradise, it's the real world, and it demands efficient progress for any venture to be viable. Keep that in mind the next time somebody talks about minimum wage, no matter what their rationale is.
That said, you have my apologies for the tone of this post. This is a subject I feel strongly about. I'm not implying that you are an idiot or anything like that, nor would I know. It just pushes my buttons when someone even suggests that the idea of minimum wage is a good thing, and I think this message needs to be conveyed.