The Minimum Wage

"This is upon Milton's presupposition of what a "just" wage is. What amount of work justifies a rate of $1.50 an hour? By whose standard? Milton's standard seems to be whatever the employer wants and that this is just because it is "his" business. Allow me to offer some other standards by which "just" could be discerned and then allow me to ask my opponent what makes his standard any better than these others." FREEDO! You conflate justice with justification! The workers are today in hellish conditions and make but a pittance. This is the problem in search of a solution! It is, the labor problem of old, that has to be solved. The question then is not "do those in low-paying jobs deserve more" but how can we get more for them? Unfortunately, the Minimum Wage laws do not help the situation. Just the opposite, they are a hinder and, if this is true you must agree, be done away with. The downtrodden, those most in need of a job, are those that are afflicted with the curse of minimum wage laws. They are cast into unemployment. Why? Suppose that there is a certain job that needs to be done. The employer, being a greedy moneygrubbing capitalist, wants the position filled as cheap as possible, ceteris paribus. Now, he may hire three low-skilled workers, for $4/hour to fill the position. Or he may hire one higher-end, "middle class" worker who could do the job just as well as the other three for $13/hour. Surely, then, the employer will higher the three fellows in more desperate straights. But, what if the minimum wage is 7.25? Assuming the employer wants to employ legally, the low-skilled workers will not cost $12/hour but $21.75/hour! And so they are unemployed. There are many instances also of machinery being introduced to take the place of artificially expensive labor. Fast food restaurants buy plastic utensils instead of hiring dishwashers, grocery stores install E-Z Scans instead of hiring cashiers. Such is the nature of the beast. "Is that so? I'd like you to prove that. Tell me, does an employer, who is making profit off a business, have any more trouble than an employee, who make no such profit at all and who is so desperate for money that they must sell their labor for less than what they produce is sold for? And "charity" is it? Again, I ask, by whose standard? Whose is it to give--the employer or the employee? Who is to say from whom it is to be charity--is it not disputed?--and, may I ask you then, who is in the more financially stable position to give it?" The employer will not give! We must be realistic. The employer wants to make as much money as possible. If you prevent low-skill workers from competing in the job market through a minimum wage law then you have done nothing to improve their lot. "Is that so? What empirical evidence do you have to support this? Do counties/states with higher minimum-wages have higher unemployment?" Foolish fool! Economic laws are ceteris paribus! You cannot compare different states with different economies to each other and expect the results to be authoritative. Nothing is more authoritative than the use of your own logic which shows the error in the humanitarians support of Minimum Wage laws. Nevertheless, here is a graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows a significant correlation between minimum wage laws and youth unemployment, especially blacks.[1] If you are a humanitarian, you must support elimination of these inhuman wage laws. In addition to that, would abolish Social Security taxation robs 15.3% of their current wages from the worker. There are many other reforms that should also be made. But increasing the minimum wage certainly isn't one, abolishing it is. 1 http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com...