[jnicholasp]

> those jobs can't support a family

Should they be able to? Absent some kind of deliberate regulatory or collective-bargaining action to prop up the price of labor in a given category, I assume the prevailing wages tend to reflect an implicit agreement between employers and potential employees on what that labor is worth. What is the argument for propping up the price of labor beyond what people are willing to do it for?

Or, put another way, what is the argument for why jobs should be seen as existing for the sake of giving workers enough money to live on, rather than as existing because some people want certain things done and are willing to pay a certain amount to have them done? In the second case, the value of having certain things done is not infinitely variable: some actions will create x value in the world, and can only be worth doing if they cost <x to do. Requiring that those actions be paid >=x will simply mean that those things will cease to exist. Is it a better world if we regulate out of existence those jobs whose performance is worth less than a family-supporting wage?

[ChrisLTD]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. The argument for propping up the price of labor is that 1) we don't want working people to starve on the streets, 2) politically we've decided it's not the government's job to keep able-bodied workers off the streets. #1 is clearly right, while #2 should be up for debate.

As for wage floors killing jobs, the effect would depend on the height of the floor. Modest increases in the minimum wage have had practically no effect on employment, but I'm sure massive hikes would cause problems.

[jnicholasp]

Thank you, too.

I'm not convinced that propping up the price of labor directly follows from your point 1), which I do of course agree with. It seems better to me that the government do what it can to encourage the creation of jobs that are valuable enough to support living wages, rather than mandate that jobs which are not valuable enough to do so cannot legally exist. The former, I think, encourages creativity and the development of new possibilities, while the latter restricts freedom and limits the diversity of the economic ecology.