Help me make #fightfor15 people realize what they want: #wageeugenics
Unions and feel-good liberals are back in the streets to “fight” for a $15/h minimum wage. Protesters in many cities across the country took to the streets on November 29 to show their discontent with their present work conditions. If you know how ridiculous such demand is, skip to the next subtitle. If not, keep reading below to know why the minimum wage is a terrible idea.
No, I am not some cruel person whose unfetteredcapitalistneoliberalpuppyeatingkochbrother greed has destroyed his heart. Quite the contrary: it is because I care for all humans that I want this ridiculous law to be abolished.
Why is it ridiculous? Simple: minimum wage laws forbid employers to pay people below a certain amount. Therefore, people who are not productive enough to meet with the salary requirement will be fired/ will not be hired. This Unlucky Brian meme summarizes it well.
It has always been what its supporters sought in the past when they adopted such measures. The Davis-Bacon Act (which created the federal minimum wage) was adopted explicitly to keep lower-skilled (African-American) workers from the South to work in the North and therefore “protect” good Northern worker jobs. Other racist countries like Canada and Australia adopted the minimum wage for the same reason, i.e. price out “undesirable” workers to keep “good” White working jobs.
If you’re still not convinced, let’s use Frédéric Bastiat’s favorite weapon: reductio ad absurdum (shrink down to ridicule). Let’s assume there were a movement that asked for a $1,000/h minimum wage. You would all agree that this amount is much too high and that it would simply destroy all jobs, right? I’m pretty sure most of you would also agree that $100/h is still too high a minimum wage. Why would it be ANY different for ANY minimum wage amount?
Besides, considering the vast differences in the cost of living across the U.S., such a measure would be devastating for states like Mississippi and Arkansas. Their low cost of living means that small business creation would virtually come to a complete stop since most entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to afford such high wages. It’s not like other small and medium business owners would, either…
Fight against #wageeugenics
Even the Congressional Budget Office has predicted massive job losses should the federal minimum wage be hiked to even just $10.10/h. Imagine $15/h…
Therefore, I need your help to make #wageeugenics go viral. While being exposed to the truth won’t change liberals’ minds, uniformed voters and people mildly interested in politics are within our reach. They need to know that a minimum wage will make low-skilled workers like teens and people with no more than a high school diploma unemployable since they won’t be able to produce enough to be “worth” $15/h. They will therefore be stuck in a vicious circle where they will either try to get a college major with a mountain of debt and little employment perspectives or be stuck on welfare with little incentives to get out of it since acquiring a job would amount to an effective 60 percent income tax rate – or worse – since they lose all their benefits like food stamps or subsidized health insurance cold-turkey.
Let #wageeugenics become viral!
I disagree. productivity is up CEO profits are up if a 15 dollar min wage means some small biz has to lay ppl off that biz was doomed already or has too many slaves working. The min wage back in 1960 would equal nearly 8 times its original value today by the most conservative estimates.
"In 1960, the nominal minimum wage was $1.00, but that is equal to nearly $8.00 in today's dollars. In fact, the real minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $10.74 an hour (2013 dollars). Since then, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has slowly fallen over time"
2013 dollars are even in a different class than 2016 dollars so really it should be over 20 minimum
According to what objective standard are you saying that paying less than $15 is slave work? What is your moral standard to determine that wages need t be decreed in DC?
But you do bring an interesting point: inflation. It has been eating purchasing power away at an accelerated pace since the 70s. That has to do with 1) the official dropping of the gold standard and 2) an unprecedented increase of the monetray supply. But #endthefed is a whole other subject in itself...
moral standard? instead of morals how about the facts like the fact we already have a min wage so wages are ALREADY decreed in DC. We wouldn't have to keep raising it if the fed stopped interfering in the free market. cant treat the symptoms and cure the cold no matter which way we look at it
Such a decree is unconstitutional, but no one has the guts to contest it. Especially since the Supreme Court chickened out of its duties after the court packing blackmail.
Besides some presidents DID realize its damage and suspended it in times of economic emergency (stagflation, Katrina).
You're absolutely right and we should keep it simple:
"minimum wage laws forbid employers to pay people below a certain amount."
Outlawing people from bargaining for work at lower wages is a great way to keep low productivity people out of work. I agree with your sentiment from both an economist's perspective and a human rights perspective.
Could it explain the important gains in productivity we've had in the past 40 years?
And the human dignity part is crucial. Severely handicapped people (physical or mental) would pay a dear price by being outpriced from the market
No I don't think so re: the explanation for productivity gains. We've had massive tech growth and process innovation which surely has disproportionate contribution to productivity over simply excluding lower productivity people from the workforce. Of course, part of the tech / innovation is to compensate for replacing humans not allowed to perform those functions, but I'd guess that's a fraction of the overall innovation factor.
Completely agree about the cruelty of stomping on human dignity like this.