Minimum Wage

---- Wages are a voluntary agreement between an employer and an employee. The government has no business to interfere with the optional consent of individuals. ---- A wage is hardly an "optional" facet of the workplace. It is rudimentary. People need money and obtain it by using their skills in a certain field. ---- The wage agreement by its nature is mutually beneficiary to both parties. The employer has agreed his money is worth less than the work the employee does. The employee has agreed his work is worth less than the money he is paid by his employer. ---- Scarce amounts of employees 'agree' that their work is worth less than the money they are paid. They concede their work is at LEAST worth the amount their employers pay them. ---- t makes no economic sense to force an employer to pay employees more than what they're willing to work for. ---- Perhaps not economicall but when you factor in ethics it becomes a whole other matter. Take for example the abundant Chinese sweatshops. It is well known they are payed pitifully small wages. It is extremely doubtful the employees believe their work is worth cents per hour but concede to the wage because there is no other alternative. Most minimum wage jobs are "bottom of the barrel" and many employers would jump at the chance of paying their employees 2 dollars an hour. It then becomes a matter of wage fixing among different employers. ---- The market consequences of government interference are fewer jobs available because the finances of the employer are constrained due to excess pay. ---- Fewer jobs? Perhaps. However, is this not negateable when employees are being paid half of the current wage? For example, we have a hypothetical factory which currently employs 30 people at $8.00/hour (the current minimum wage in Canada). Now, if the minimum wage is abolished the factory can hire twice as many employees and pay them $4.00/hour. Assumedly this would result in a higher revenue stream for the factory which could be potentially levied out to the employees. However, it is equally possible it could not be. Thus, while the economy is stronger, we have now 60 people living well below the poverty line (extremely below, actually) when before we simply had 30 people on the poverty line and 30 people without work. The economy thrives at the expense of the underprivalleged or poor. Thus, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We cannot expect companies to pay fair wages to employees who are, again, "bottom-of the barrel". There is yet another possibility. Would it not also be reasonable to say that as wage increases the demand for labour increases? ---- Minimum wage is artificially raising the worth of an employee when the true productive value can only be negotiated by private individuals. Are we to believe that every employee on minimum wage each doing separate jobs are equally productive to one another? ---- Again, let us take a hypothetical situation. We have Joe Blow wanting to get a clerical job at a fast food restaurant. He feels that 7 dollars an hour for this work is perfectly reasonable. He goes to the first restaurant. They offer 4 dollars an hour. Second: 3. Third: 3.50. Fourth: 2.00. Naturally he goes with the first offer. Joe did not agree to this wage, he simply had nowhere else to work. There was no negotiation, he was forced to either not work or get paid 4.00/hour. Your logic also fails you in questioning that every employee whom is paid minimum wage is equally productive to the other when it works the same way: is every employee NOT paid minimum wage more productive than every employee whom is? ---- When do we reach the stage of a livable wage? Is it when the employee can buy a car? Is it when a house can be purchased? What about a huge television? A livable wage cannot be measured because there are no criteria. What can be said is the employee by agreeing to a wage has determined it is a livable wage. ---- A "livable wage" is a number of factors majorily pertaining to the person earning the wages. For example, to a mother of 3 making less than 17,000 dollars/year is povertous. But to a single bachelor anything less than 9,500 is povertous. Tailor fitting wages to fit the people who earn them is a communist ideal. Thus the lesser of the two evils is simply making a minimum wage. The minimum wage is in my own eyes the minimum amount of payment a person should be paid for sacrificing time to an employer.