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by clarky07
2028 days ago
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the counter point is that minimum wage is artificial. if you aren't actually providing that much value, businesses will just cut the job altogether. if you are trying to raise a large family on minimum wage, well then that's obviously a big problem, but it's highly likely to be a problem you created with your life choices. on the other hand, if you are in high school or college, minimum wage is likely fine as it's just extra spending money. raising minimum wage significantly more than likely just kills these jobs in favor of a kiosk that can do the job just as well. if we want to make it so that everyone can live, that is a job for gov't with things like universal healthcare, universal basic income, social safety nets. forcing businesses to pay people more for a job than the job creates in value is not a solution. in the long term those jobs will just go away completely to a technology solution. give people a safety net so that they can not be in poverty, but don't force businesses to pay more than the market says a job is worth. kind of a silly argument on a post about amazon anyways, since they pay well above minimum wage, and in fact have campaigned on raising it (not out of the goodness of their hearts mind you, they want to put small competitors out of business and they know they can't afford a large min wage hike like amazon can) |
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This is true, but becoming less and less true. Today there are all sorts of jobs that used to provide a living wage, that don't anymore. With no college and limited training, you could hire on at an assembly plant and make enough to support yourself. These types of jobs are getting scarcer and scarcer.
It's not always bad life choices. Sometimes it's choices life has made for you. Meaning: you were born in the wrong ZIP code, with the wrong parent(s), and sent to the wrong school. Choices other people made for you, rather than decisions you took the wrong path on.
> on the other hand, if you are in high school or college, minimum wage is likely fine as it's just extra spending money. raising minimum wage significantly more than likely just kills these jobs in favor of a kiosk that can do the job just as well.
This is a really hard aspect to design for. I agree that we can't require that all jobs pay enough to support a single earner's ability to rent an apartment, feed themselves, pay for a car, auto insurance, healthcare, etc. If that were the case, I would never have found work in my teens and early 20s.
> if we want to make it so that everyone can live, that is a job for gov't with things like universal healthcare, universal basic income, social safety nets. forcing businesses to pay people more for a job than the job creates in value is not a solution. in the long term those jobs will just go away completely to a technology solution.
I could not agree more. The labor market become so much freer when these things are taken out of the employment equation. My employer should not be anywhere near my healthcare. The way we allowed ourselves to tie those 2 things together is one of the greatest drags on our economy, and for labor mobility and opportunity.
If we had a UBI along with healthcare, I could see minimum wage being thrown out altogether. Employers would offer what the job is worth, and workers would work for what they value their own time at.