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>>>The people who believe in the legal minimum wage always try to justify it with the correct observation that even a full time worker paid the minimum wage would seem to have an impossible time providing any kind of adequate living standard for a family. This true as far as it goes, but no attempt is made to figure out how they get along. My suspicion is that the families that actually stay together and off welfare and crime are actually working 2,3 or 4 minimum wage jobs. If this is true, I cannot understand how increasing the minimum wage and making some or all of those jobs illegal (?) represents any kind of improvement.<<<
Gee, maybe they would only have to work 1 1/2, 2 or 3 jobs instead? Maybe they could spend some time with their children or manage part time enrollment in school or a training program? Maybe families wouldn't have to double and triple up to afford housing?
I fail to understand how anyone could not see this as an improvement.
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Your failure must be the result of the following :
a) a problem understanding the word 'illegal'
When the Federal or a State government passes a minimum wage law, no affected employer can pay a full time employee a lower hourly wage rate without subjecting itself to the penalties of law. It is therefore an illegal action to create or maintain such a job.
b) a belief in the Easter Bunny theory of job creation
For an employer to create and maintain a sustainable job, the employee must be able to provide services to the employer that are worth more than the total cost of his employment. For this to be true, an increase in the minimum wage must produce an employer response that may include lower fringe benefits, conversion of full time jobs to part time, or the layoff of the lowest skilled workers. If the employer is not allowed to utilize workers of a given low skill level, then the addition of new capital equipment to increase worker productivity will support a smaller number of such workers.
c) A problem with mathematical reality
Under most cases, the increases in the minimum wage are no more than 25% or so. This is still not enough to provide a satisfactory standard of living for a worker with a single full time job. When the minimum wage is increased, some percentage of jobs are destroyed or never created. If a worker is presently surviving by working two minimum wage jobs, a 25% increase in the wage rate of one of them doesn't come close to compensating for the risk of loss of the other.
Regards, Don |
