The problem that arises is that if you artificially inflate someone's wages to an arbitrary number like 21/hr, they might not provide enough value to economically justify the wage level they're set at.
It's not, and shouldn't be, an emotional argument. It's an economical one.
Frankly, I don't care about any economic argument that says people shouldn't have the ability to put food on their table, a roof over their head, and have decent healthcare. Any company that cannot be profitable and pay their employees enough to cover basic needs shouldn't exist as a company.
I genuinely don't know how to explain that the fact it requires an income of more than 21/hr to meet basic needs is all the justification that should be required.
Maybe if we stopped thinking of employees/contractors as "labor" and thought of them as people it would be easier to empathize with their needs. Do you think that your friends, family, and loved ones deserve a wage that meets their basic needs? Why shouldn't all humans deserve the same?
That's not how capitalism works and that's not why companies exist. Companies pay you what you worth to them. A company is not a human, it doesn't care whether you have a family and are struggling or not.
The primary purpose of a business is to maximize profits for its stakeholders.
Then the answer is simple, if we want humanism in the way we deal with employees, than businesses that seek to maximize profits for their stakeholders should be outlawed.
> Like what makes educated people more valuable as human beings?
On average, educated people contribute more value to the functioning of society. I can drive myself around. I can't perform my own heart surgery.
The argument that all humans are inherently equally valuable is specious reasoning. I can come up with all sorts of trolly car conundrums that if you were forced to choose, you'd make a value judgement about which person to save because they have more value.
> Any company that cannot be profitable and pay their employees enough to cover basic needs shouldn't exist as a company.
There are many ways to cover your basic needs that don't require you to live on your own in a one-bedroom apartment and three square meals a day. In fact, most of humanity survived by pooling resources. The ability to live entirely on your own being common is a very recent phenomena as is three square meals a day.
All your stating is that people shouldn't have options where they can pool resources. As someone supporting two older adults in my household, you're saying that if they can't get hold a livable wage jobs (unlikely given that one has Parkinson's) but still still could earn money and contribute to the household. You've not made my circumstances harder by legislating away opportunities for them to contribute.
The CEO of walmart most certainly isn't worth 22 million/year. If you can't bring in 21/hour as a cab driver you probably shouldn't be driving cab, especially considering you should be pulling in, what, well over 100/hr gross?
These articles present an incredibly naive analysis of the situation. The logic is "high pay should equal high stock performance" but this fails to recognize that in an effecient market the ability and salary of the ceo would already be priced into the stock, and thus would have "no effect" on its performance. You can't prove that the stock would've done less-worse if a different (lower paid) ceo was there, which is essentially what these articles try and argue.
It's not, and shouldn't be, an emotional argument. It's an economical one.