[esaym]

>The purpose of minimum wage is a floor,

It goes deeper than that. There was a documentary that leaked a new Walmart employee going through their initial first day orientation. If you were a new hire and were married and/or had children, you got extra "orientation" on all the government benefits you now qualified for (welfare, food stamps, medicaid, etc) since you were now considered below the USA poverty line.

I am fine with letting the market regulate itself, but it is not ok that a company can pay employees low because the government will pick up the other half. That is not "self regulation".

[cbsmith]

If you're earning less than $130,000 a year, you are eligible for an FSA, which the HR team will discuss during almost any company's new-hire orientation...

There are lots of government benefits that are restricted to people below a certain income. That doesn't mean that it is unconscionable to pay people at that income level or to educate employees on what they are eligible for so that they can take advantage of it.

[sgift]

> That doesn't mean that it is unconscionable to pay people at that income level

If that income level is the poverty line: Yes, it is.

[cbsmith]

So then your problem is with the income level, not educating people about benefits they are eligible for.

[ghaff]

>If you're earning less than $130,000 a year, you are eligible for an FSA

Assuming you mean a flexible spending account (for healthcare out of pocket), you're certainly not capped at $130K/year in the US. Your broader point is of course true.

[cbsmith]

If you are single, the limit is 130,000/yr. After that you can have an HSA, but FSA.

[Scoundreller]

It makes sense, kinda. When your public and private social programs are numerous and disconnected, getting a job can mean losing a lot of benefits while qualifying for others.

e.g. my employer had a session about their benefits package: If I was on welfare, this would be a change in how everything works. It would have been nice if they had a session on our national pension scheme since I was now obligated to start paying into that.

[mbostleman]

>>but it is not ok that a company can pay employees low because the government will pick up the other half>>

I don't think this is a situation that applies to the idea of self-regulation. In this case, a distortion of the market is first created by the government subsidy. So the natural behavior of a business would be to leverage it. Just as the natural behavior of the IRS is to go after things like your company's paying for your cell phone and calling it taxable income.

I would suggest that the idea of self-regulation is best applied where there are no market distortions from the government that have already warped the context.

[Aunche]

That's not how economics works. Walmart is paying their employees low despite welfare, not because of it. Without welfare, people would be more desperate for work and would be willing to work for lower wages.

[abfan1127]

would you prefer they not tell those people about the available benefits?

[mirker]

I think the point is Walmart is able to pay at a low enough rate that it must be effectively subsidized by the government. Walmart then plays into it as a further benefit “they” provide.

[zdragnar]

The government is setting the price floor for wages. If that price floor falls below the point at which the government will offer benefits to people, then it isn't Walmart that is being subsidized.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I would prefer that nobody who works 40 hours a week (tops! I'd be happy if the number was less) earns less than the US poverty level for a family with 1 or 2 children (undecided over which). As a matter of law.

[scarface74]

I’m sure my 16 year old son would have loved that.

And everyone arguing that a company doesn’t deserve to exist if it can’t profitably pay more, is posting on a site funding money losing companies that couldn’t exist if they actually had to make a profit.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

If you want to advocate the position that there's some age where the correlation between work and income can or should be looser, be my guest.

For me, the bottom line is that spending 40 hours a week doing something that requires no skill should still entitle the employee to be able to live a basic life. Further, that it should require only one person in a family to do that work in order for the family do live a basic life. If the person wishes to earn more then they will need to acquire more skills one way or another.

I do not believe there can be any moral justification for somebody receiving 40 hours of someone's effort (even an unskilled effort) and not giving that person enough for a basic life. I don't care what the age of the person doing the work is, and yep, if the company cannot do that, it doesn't deserve to exist - it doesn't do anything valuable enough to pay its employees adequately, so it can disappear and nobody except the owners will care.

[scarface74]

So it costs a family of four about $7000 a month to live in San Francisco

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/San-Francisco

Should the minimum wage there be $48/hour after taxes?

That’s $60/hour before taxes according to this gross up calculator

https://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/grossup/california/r...

Portland Oregon is #25 on the list of the 50 largest metro areas in the US. A living wage there is about $44/hour for a family of four. Should that be the minimum wage in Portland?

https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/41051

[PaulDavisThe1st]

For the purposes of my answers, I am taking your cost-of-living values as they are. I am not convinced they are correct, but willing to assume that they are.

> Should the minimum wage there be $48/hour after taxes?

Yes.

> A living wage there is about $44/hour for a family of four. Should that be the minimum wage in Portland?

Yes.

What's your alternative? "Oh sorry, your job is requires so little skill that even though you could just spend 40 hours a week doing it, you will need to find at least another 20 hours a week doing something else to be able to afford a basic life"

I find that morally unsupportable.

[sudosysgen]

Well not quite. They exist because they are profitable on average.

[scarface74]

You think that most companies that are YC funded and seeking additional rounds of funding are profitable?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

"on average" does not mean "most companies".

It could mean that, but in all likelihood it means that some YC funded companies make huge amounts of money for YC that sufficiently balances the losses that they keep doing it.

Ya know, like most investment (that works).