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by 4WIW 715 days ago
The flip side of minimum wage is often overlooked: people on the bottom end of the spectrum, who struggle to compete with other minimum-wagers, are cut out of the workforce. At $15 or $20/hour, the job requirements are higher than at $10/hour, and these folks stand no chance.

Likewise, the low-end employers are priced out of the market.

It's the same survival of fittest, except the weakest constituance is hurt most. They are very sparse so their voice is never heard.

3 comments

In a few states you are allowed to pay people with 'severe' disabilities under minimum wage.

The idea is to incentivize companies to hire these people for otherwise unprofitable work and mostly to get the disabled out of the house and earning some money that they otherwise would not.

For example, most of the prescription glasses made in the US are made by blind people under such a scheme.

Honestly, it sounds terribly exploitative. But, from what I understand, these schemes are mostly successful in that the disabled are happy with it along with the employers.

> It's the same survival of fittest, except the weakest constituance is hurt most. They are very sparse so their voice is never heard.

their voice is heard to a disproportionate extent because there are entire companies like Walmart and really entire industries like food service that built a business model around being able to pay sub-living wages (usually with the difference made up by tax dollars or tips).

Completely true. My former partner was at that bottom end.

Wouldn't be a problem if we had ubi instead of minimum wage, but alas, voters don't want it