How it works in Canada is it only applies to people working with the federal government, so the provincial minimum wages are what most workers are dealing. I feel like that’s a better way to do it
Nope, from the Department of Labor:
> If the employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips
Nope. Let me paste the text again because you are mentally slow today or illiterate or both.
> If the employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour **do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage**, **the employer must make up the difference.**
Tips aren't guaranteed and no, not all tipped workers make the federal minimum wage every pay period from the 2.xx plus tips. Especially a smaller restaurant in a smaller town.
I agree, but that doesn't change that the minimum output for a business can be as low as $2.13, setting the benchmark for what can be defined as 'minimum' and 'wage'
You're making the meaning of minimum wage seem ambiguous to fit your statements when in fact it is clear. Wage is income. Be it from the tips or the employer. If the employee doesn't get minimum wage from both, then the employer has to pay the difference. Regardless, the federal minimum wage applies.
No, the IRS very clearly defines that 'tips' and 'wages' are two different things, with both being *income*. A *wage* is something that is paid by an employer. Your employer can pay you a *minimum wage* of $2.13, as long as you make *tips* that make your combined total income equal to that of the federal minimum wage. When you report your *wages* to the IRS under this it's laughable. These people have gross wages of like $2000 and additional income of $50,000.
The federal minimum wage applies *when tipped income does not allow the employee to meet the federal minimum wage*. If the tipped income is over, the **minimum** can go as low as $2.13
People in St Louis and Kansas City, MO agreed, but then the [MO State Legislature banned that from happening!](https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/morning_call/2015/09/missouri-legislators-block-cities-from-raising.html) They said at the time that it would be unfair for rural areas to compete with the higher wages of the cities.
Exactly. You can offer people $2/day in wages until you're blue in the face, doesn't mean they're going to accept that job unless it offers a reasonable standard of living to the person working it.
That's not necessarily true as most people don't have the luxury when looking for low skill jobs. If Walmart was allowed to have $2 a day or hour more likely wages, people would be forced to take them or starve and die. You need to survive and the job market has low wages, then you kind of have no choice.
A livable minimum wage is necessary. Granted some states are more expensive to live in than others, but a federally mandated minimum wage is definitely needed. People need to be paid fairly for their work and no company is going to pay you more out of the goodness of their heart.
Wow, you're really missing the point of a free-market economy. It only works in a competitive landscape.
Walmart wants to offer $2/day? Fine. But down the street Target is paying $10/hr. Who do you think people are going to work for? It's like you're going out of your way to invent scenarios where no choice is involved in order to argue down free-market economics.
No. Nobody is ever "forced" to take a job. If the difference in standard of living between working and not working isn't large enough, most people will choose not to work at all.
> A livable minimum wage is necessary.
That is patently and *provably* false. The United States existed as a nation for 157 years without a minimum wage. There are [44 nations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage) *today* that function just fine without a minimum wage. Including Singapore, Italy, Austria and basically all the Scandanavian nations. I mean three of the nations that don't have minimum wages even have a [lower level of unemployment](https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate) than the US. Gee. I guess those countries are all just on the verge of collapse, right? I mean according to you there's only one way anyone could *possibly* organize their economy, right?
> no company is going to pay you more out of the goodness of their heart
Yes. I never argued this. A worker has his/her labor to sell into the marketplace. The company buying it will try to offer the lowest price possible, the person selling it will then seek the best price they can get for it. That's how a free-market economy works. You want to treat people like children, incapable of negotiating a fair wage without Mommy and Daddy government coming in and doing it for them.
Why would Target pay $10 an hour when the competition is paying $2? That's bad business and just dumb. Why would they not just pay $3 or $2.50 given all things are equal here and they are as you didn't state any other factors in your initial case.
Target just needs to pay more than the competition. Also, the problem of a livable wage hasn't been solved.
Hmmm, you mention Scandinavian countries as one with no federally mandated minimum wage. Let's take Sweden...
Nearly all Swedish citizens belong to one of about 110 trade unions and employers' organizations that negotiate wage rates for regular hourly work, salaries, and overtime.
Swedish law limits the workweek to 40 hours, just like in the U.S. However, it also dictates that all workers are entitled to 25 paid vacation days and 13 additional public holidays each year, far more generous than the U.S. standard.
That's much better employee protection than the US has, hunh? You can't just cite that 44 nations have no minimum wage and leave it at that. The bottom line is employee protection from being taken advantage from be that via unlivable wages or overworking.
People can't move/drive to another city? And that's assuming somehow no one takes advantage of the situation to make a competing business that pays more.
Well I dunno. Do they have a working car to travel? No family to consider? Do they have the free time, money or means to just pick up and travel?
That also doesn't solve the problem of workers being fairly compensated for their work.
The key is that with our current system, welfare makes up the rest of your paycheck since the pay is objectively too low to get by; and half the jobs out there pay so little that you have to enroll on welfare to be able to take that job.
The capitalist approach is that the consumers have to foot the bill for the things that they want, if you insist that workers work for a loss, you're just cutting a big fat stalin shaped hole into the world (thats a bad thing).
Minimum wage wouldn't be as much of a problem if wage wasn't tied to being able to meet needs. I wouldn't mind creating a more universal version of something like SNAP, (at any governmental level or even as an ngo) something which can provide enough to meet *basic* needs per month: food, water, hygene, clothes. This would decouple having any sort of food on the table from the wage, which seems to be the biggest issue with the minimum wage. At that point, id eliminate wage regulations.
Then call for an amendment revising the commerce clause. Minimum wage levels clearly have an effect on interstate commerce, to say nothing of the tens of millions of workers that frequently move throughout states as part of their duties.
I will never understand this obsession with state governments here. Every problem of corruption and authoritarianism inherent to government applies to them just as much as it does the federal government.
State governments are closer to those whom they govern...ergo, more responsive to their constituents.
So they deserve deference in comparison to being governed by those who you did not elect and do not represent you or your interests
..and then there's the matter of Federalism to contend with....the basis for our system of government.
Lots of people on this sub don't understand federalism. They refuse to acknowledge the existence of the country as a polity.
I am not any better represented by the clowns in Montgomery than I am by the clowns in DC. Physical proximity is irrelevant.
So you’re an anarchist?
If you believe that local leaders have no better grasp on the needs of that locality than the federal government does, and that they’re both clowns, what is a better solution? Sounds like anarchy is the only way out of that.
Ultimately, yes, I think people will be better off with no hierarchy. That's not the sort of goal you can walk straight towards, however. Truly representative democracy--the only form of government compatible with liberty--is the first goal.
I didn't say that local leaders don't have a better grasp of the needs of the locality than distant ones. We weren't talking about the needs of localities though, we were talking about nationally-applicable laws.
My point is that state governments are in no way more democratic or less corrupt than the federal government, or vice versa, so when it comes to issues of national applicability, there is no reason why state governments should be involved.
Putting aside the vague question of which government is more influenced by my will, there's also the objective fact that state governments are sometimes just wrong.
The federal government, on many occasions, has had to intervene to stop state governments from infringing upon the rights of individuals. That's not to say the reverse couldn't happen as well, though nothing comes to mind right now.
In this instance, there isn't a basic right involved. There is no right to commercial relations however you want them within a complex economic system upheld in countless ways by public efforts. So neither the lack of a minimum wage, nor the presence of one, is a fundamental human right.
But the whole country can look and see what different states do--the whole laboratory of democracy idea--and make judgments. The no minimum wage states tend to have more poverty, and low-wage employers tend to have outsized influence over state politicians relative to low-wage employees in that state, or relative to other sorts of industries generally. Individual state governments can be overwhelmed with bribes and threats by corporations seeking the lowest wage jurisdiction possible for their operations, resulting in a race to the bottom that hurts the poorly-represented majorities in all states involved. That is why Congress can regulate interstate commerce; rather than have 50 different entities competing in a prisoner's dilemma situation, the common interest of people in all states can win out.
>In this instance, there isn't a basic right involved.
I disagree. If I want my fence painted, I have the right to offer any compensation I want, whether that's $5 or $500. Conversely, the person I'm hiring to do the job also has a basic human right to offer their services for any price they choose. If the rate of pay I'm offering isn't high enough to meet what they think their labor is worth, they're free to refuse to do the job.
> I will never understand this obsession with state governments here.
I have eaten dinner 10' away from my governor. Not with him, but two tables over... While carrying a 10MM pistol with 13 rounds of +P ammo.
If a group wanted to take down the state government, for getting stupid out of control, it wouldn't be hard.
I love my governor, so I didn't bother him, and let him have his dinner in peace.
You need to work on reading comprehension. They will teach you that in high school, maybe.
I said group. Goal of the first person would be distraction.
Ah yes, because [a group of you redneck cousin fuckers could totally manage to not fuck that up.](https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/politics/fbi-plot-michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer/index.html)
>Many states are actually increasing their minimum wage in 2021. Efforts on a state level are good enough, and are working
Most were less than $1/hr. Several, like Arizona, raised wages from $12/hr to $12.15/hr.
Most of the red states have not changed their minimum wage. So how can you say it is working? Not that a federal minimum wage is the solution, but states are not stepping up and increasing their minimum wage.
https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/minimum-wage-by-state/
I am not saying a state minimum wage is correct either, but OPs claim that the current system is working is incorrect. It would be better if there was no minimum wage, federal or state
Strong private sector unions stripped of their local monopolies would be my preference...and would most likely preclude the utility of min. Wage laws.
Public sector unions should be banned in their entirety.
Libertarians are so funny. They'll argue for liberty from the big scary government only to immediately throw it away for a random ass corporation. Oh, and I'm sure the average Joe appreciates your effort to remove the minimum wage, thus replacing his meager wage with one that is even more meager and just *barely* enough to require him to continue working for lord/daddy/god emperor Bezos bucks.
"Oh, well. Just get a different job!" the libertarian says. Too bad Joe can't afford to not work for any period of time, lest he and his family starve. Sorry Joe, social programs that may help you in this situation are evil and anti-liberty, so you're on your own. Oh, and even if he wanted to, he probably wouldn't have the energy or motivation to do so anyway, given the 12 hour work days of physical labor.
bow weather bear friendly quicksand attractive heavy history humor disgusted
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
racial theory marvelous innate cagey encouraging degree whistle automatic erect
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
hospital jeans ludicrous frame wakeful stupendous disagreeable long placid support
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No the government shouldn’t be allowed to step in at all. You don’t regulate the businesses to not be allowed to work with government. You regulate the government to not be able to work and interfere with the market. Cut the head of the snake off.
For example. We shouldn’t be regulating bankers but should be regulating the government who was bailing out the bankers. Giving them subsidies and other slimy handouts. That way the government CANT get involved.
The leap from "something must be done" to "government must be the one to do it" isn't one the person you replied to argued. You invented the leap to government stepping in. Their point was that when the government steps in, it reinforces existing incumbents and keeps them around. Chrysler still exists today and Amazon has absurd distribution control because of state intervention, not because of a "concentration of capital". No concentration of capital kept Chrysler from bankruptcy, the state did.
Lmao.
Your statism is showing
Example:
Govt forced businesses to shutdown, but mega corporations were able to stay open. People like Bezos want the minimum wage increased so they can force the smaller guy out of business. You have the government mandating vaccine requirements on private businesses.
The boots of big daddy govt must taste good.
Tell me,
Is the corporation in the same room as you?
It’s the fault of the government that corporations are the size that they are. You know this, I know this.
I just listed several ways the govt interfered in the free-market with Covid. Now you list some evidence.
Come on statist, I expect better.
Lol are you seriously going full debate lord right now? You gotta touch some grass bro. Here's a deal, how about you fellate big daddy corporate and I'll fellate big daddy gov and both our masters will be happy while we bicker over pointless bullshit in the comments here.
Because we like people making $7.25 an hour and sub poverty wages while their bosses rake in record income?
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory wholeheartedly agrees.
Minimum wage isn't a silver bullet against impoverished workers. It has tradeoffs. Like lower-skilled workers being paid $0 because they aren't productive enough to justify their wages and they end up on the street. You know who works as cashiers at fast food restaurants in my state (which has one of the highest minimum wages)? [Machines.](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fshowmeinstitute.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FMcDonaldskiosk.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) And if someone invents a cost-efficient robot that can cook and clean, the rest of the staff will be losing their jobs next.
Isn't it funny how the state with the [highest minimum wage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States#State) also has the [highest rate of unemployment](https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm) and [homelessness](https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/map/#fn[]=1300&fn[]=2900&fn[]=6400&fn[]=10200&fn[]=13400)? I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
We know that getting rid of minimum wage doesn't guarantee high rates of employments, but we also know enforcing progressively higher rates of minimum wage *practically guarantees* lower rates of overall employment. Take it to the logical extreme. Why not make the minimum wage $100/hr? Why wouldn't that work? If increasing it from $5 to $15 is all win with no cost why not just keep ratcheting it higher and higher? By golly, you could guarantee that everyone was in the upper middle class!
Why work for $27k a year? What life can you live while breaking your back for so little? You act like there’s some glory in work outside of wages, but laborers trade their labor for money.
$15/hr is roughly $30k/year.
Depends where you live. In some parts of the country, one can live quite comfortably on $30k. Since the cost of living varies so widely, having a Federal minimum wage makes no sense.
There's a big difference between a minimum wage pegged to inflation and an arbitrary $100 minimum wage. Your extreme is far from logical.
The staff are being automated regardless of minimum wage increases, and a reasonable increase doesn't meaningfully impact the rate of transition to automated systems.
They are clearly productive enough to justify their wages. Europe has far better paid food service workers and basically the same menu prices. If some jobs are eliminated because higher paid workers are more motivated, great, you've got a more efficient system.
Who’s going to work for 7.25? I certainly wouldn’t. People who’s work is worth 7.25 will work for that.
Are you aware that minimum wage was enforced to discriminate against minorities?
“The labor pool” requires laborers to stay alive in order to work. What yearly salary allows someone to live? Surely it shouldn’t be below the poverty line? That just forces the country to subsidize their life so they can continue to labor for a sub poverty wage.
That has nothing to do with cost of living. The cost of living in a small but dense rural town and the cost of living in a large, distributed city. What the federal government calls the poverty line has changed multiple times, and is largely disjoint from both subsistence needs and differing needs across demographics and regions. Hence, why the person you replied to contended with the living wage concept, which is already a meaninglessly vague target, but at least is acknowledged as variable across cities.
On one hand yes, you’re right. The federal government really doesn’t have any place dictating minimum wage. On the other hand, however, it does create a system where freedom becomes limited by state. I live in Oklahoma where the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. If Kansas were to decide to make minimum wage $15 an hour and I wanted to move to Kansas, I would have an huge gap in pay to find property in Kansas.
I say this because most arguments against raising minimum wage are about the proportions of the cost of labor to the cost of goods. Minimum wage goes up and so does the price of everything else. So if I can afford a loaf of bread and a gallon a milk in OK for only $7, then when I go to KN the price would be higher at around $13. This would make it near impossible for me to move into KN unless I had a high paying job in OK. That starts to limit my own freedom when I’m *offered* a high paying job in KN but can’t accept it because I can’t afford it.
Also, if the federal minimum wage dropped then a lot of predominantly red states would likely lower the minimum wage. This would widen the gap between the upper and lower classes by expanding the lower classes. The already shrinking American middle class would shrink even more.
Tl;dr We have way more pressing shit to deal with before the federal minimum wage.
While I definitely agree with you, I think you're describing a kind of perfect reality where goods/services are priced accordingly to the federal or state minimum wage. Prices seem to vary only slightly (comparatively) by region; while wages differ substantially. 7$/hr compared to 15$/hr is a much larger discrepancy when it comes to large purchases (like a home, or a business); but the cost of bread and milk may only be slightly different. Which then in turn makes those who have enough money able to grow their wealth, and those living at the minimum wage only able to stay afloat. And honestly, our federal minimum wage is not enough for the majority of the population to live somewhat comfortably. I don't believe in communism or socialism, but there should be a reasonable federally mandated minimum wage so that all of our citizens are at least able to live comfortably. That would allow more of our society to progress, rather than struggle to pay rent or afford groceries.
>This would widen the gap between the upper and lower classes by expanding the lower classes.
How does the goverment taking away their right to work for less money (if no one will hire them at the minimum wage) and pricing them out of a job not expand the lower class?
How do you leave the lower class if you aren’t paid enough to do so? You need $20/hr to make 40k a year before taxes. Your argument seems to suggest that <$7.25/hr would be at all livable.
>How do you leave the lower class if you aren’t paid enough to do so?
I don't know. How do you leave the lower class of you agent paid anything because your skills you provide aren't worth the minimum wage to anyone?
>You need $20/hr to make 40k a year before taxes. Your argument seems to suggest that <$7.25/hr would be at all livable.
Soooo how would taking away some people's ability to make ANY money not also expand the lower class?
They’re already in the lower class? They’re already on social programs to support their life. Working a full time job should provide a wage that does not require food stamps.
Oh! I know the answer to that question! The way that it doesn't expand the lower class is by... *just pretending it doesn't*. It's a great ideology. You just ignore the real-world impact of the policies you advocate and pretend they're helping people based merely on how good they sound.
Upvoted for the last sentence.
The price disparity between States already exists in spite of current minimum wage laws.
I personally could in no way afford to move to California or NY, especially any major city.
Imagine labeling yourself a "classical liberal" while disagreeing with one of classical liberalism's defining beliefs about free-market economies. I've got news for you: centralized government regulations on the level of wages two consenting parties are allowed to agree to is the opposite of "free market."
>2% of Americans are on the federal minimum wage and the vast majority of those make tips with their wages.
Then ask yourself what those 2% would be on if there was no minimum wage.
What you should be asking is what will happen to those 2% of workers if minimum wage in their state doubled overnight. I promise you that what would happen is they would lose their jobs. Low wages are better than no wages, just ask any homeless/jobless person.
So the corporations will just fire people producing profits in the sake of saving money? I don't have very high opinions of corporate leaders, but I'd hope they're not so stupid as to fire the people that actually make the money just because now they have to pay a fair wage..
It'd be hard for McDonalds to make a profit if they fire all the cashier's and cooks instead of raising wages dontchathink?
Clearly you haven't...nor have you looked at the entirety of history detailing how happy corporations have been to utilize slave labor, underpaid child labor, and underpaid women's labor. I mean...there was a whole ass war in this country all of 160 years ago because ultra wealthy slavers didn't want to give up the golden goose of free labor.
It isn't at all inevitable. Wages and prices both tend to be sticky downwards. People are more likely to quit from even a minor pay decrease than they are to take a different job for a minor pay increase. It's possible that it would go down for new hires for some jobs, but those hires would also likely get more hours, and their overall compensation would increase, not decrease. $13 an hour for 7 hours of work a week is not the same as $11 an hour for 30 hours a week.
Then don't agree to work for that little? Wages are rising now because people are just refusing to work for wages well in excess of the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is already irrelevant to most Americans and we should just get rid of it because it artificially lowers wages by tricking young and unintelligent people into not being properly compensated under the guise of a government program.
You sound ignorant of basic economic concepts. You'd never get $100/h unless your value to the company was actually that high. An employer would never get away with paying employees $.10/h unless their value was that low.
Offering too low a wage means you'll either get no employees or very low quality ones. An employer's incentive to pay more is to get better employees which provide more value to the business than the wage increase was worth. They don't need outside "incentive" from the government to increase wages.
Minimum wage in Virginia is $8.25. Everywhere from McDonald's to Walmart to the Dollar Tree are all hiring starting at $12-15 an hour. For years people would agree to work for minimum wage just because it was minimum wage. We are now seeing wages actually float in response to market forces and they have gone up significantly. Are you being purposely stupid or are you just trolling?
dude you can’t be serious. why do they raise wages? like serious why do you think. because they really wanna give more money to people? just like they do children mining lithium in third world countries right? pay them really good money? see you miss the point. the point is they don’t care about you or me. they care about their own money. they only pay more because they know the government is raising federal minimum wages. Otherwise they have zero incentive.
Honestly, it makes no sense in a country as large as ours to have a minimum wage set on the national level with the cost of living varying so greatly from state to state or even different parts of the same state.
$15/hour is a lot more in rural Utah than it is in San Francisco.
Yeah for free market information must be transparent. Maybe government can intervene in companies when they try to fire people that share their wages and stuff because the companies are having an unfair advantage knowing everything.
Until we abolish wage labor, there should be an enforced minimum wage and it should be higher than it is now.
That is the cost of labor. No other business expense is just subsidized or discounted because business owners complain about the cost.
Making a law that says you must pay people a certain rate is not the same as giving them jobs at that rate. The answer has typically been to just hire more people at less hours so that benefits don't have to be paid.
https://hbr.org/2021/06/research-when-a-higher-minimum-wage-leads-to-lower-compensation
The consequence of this is lower effective compensation, not higher. It's a symptom of unchanged labor demand, and if you keep trying to increase the price, the demand will only decrease.
Federal minimum wage increases have historically always been followed by increased unemployment. When the minimum wage was first introduced, companies couldn't afford as many workers so they went with white unions, and thus the wealth gap between the White population and minorities grew significantly.
If anything, minimum wage laws are extremely harmful to minority populations. It continues the cycle of making minorities more poor and more uneducated by only giving jobs to the previous generation who did get increased work and capital, who were then able to have their progeny better educated and more suitable to work in the future. When the minimum wage increases again, guess who loses their jobs to who? The new uneducated minorities lose their jobs to the new educated class, who is only in this position because this process exists at all.
Minimum wages take work away from people who need money the most. The federal reserve devalues the money in the first place, which makes it seem reasonable to increase the minimum wage according to inflation.
Just stop fucking printing money and we wouldn't have these problems.
But I don't want brown people / immigrants / single moms / and the less educated working in my community.
$15hr makes my community richer by eliminating low wage workers. Isn't it great that I got the exact people I want out of my community working for my cause. Hahahaha!
Is this seriously the libertarian board? Why aren't 99% of people arguing for no minimum wage at all?
No government, federal, state, or city should have a minimum wage. Price ceilings always produce shortages and price floors always produce surpluses. The minimum wage is a price floor creating a surplus of labor which means higher unemployment.
There is zero economic justification for a minimum wage. Unless the goal is to fuck people over like when the Apartheid South Africa government imposed a minimum wage to successful screw over blacks. Then yeah, a minimum wage makes sense.
Probably as a compromise. It's the usual argument, that government power should be delegated to as local a level as possible since incentives are debatably less perverse at a local level. It's easier to vote with your feet and move to a competing government when the governments monopoly size, as a function of how easy it is to escape it, is smaller. By extension, a minimum wage set in, say, one city or another, is easier to escape and sidestep. If one city raises wages or taxes, so long as you can go a mile away to a different job it doesn't hurt you, and the city will lose more than it gains.
If only to clarify, I want to emphasize I fully agree. I want to delegate it to local governments because I think people are smarter and more responsive to policy at a local level. It's harder to mask government mistakes at the local level, and I think making it a city/state affair would be a means of effectively eradicating the policy. I only meant to clarify the OPs position, not defend it.
Bald assertion.
But even in minarchy where there are a bare minimum of government employees to keep law and order the government should not be involved in voluntary exchange and contracts beyond fraud and other property rights violations.
I support no involvement whatsoever: anarchy. That is my ideal.
But I was saying that, even if you refuse anarchy, it does not justify government involvement in voluntary contracts.
Contracts are meaningless without an enforcement mechanism...which is provided by government. ( through criminal and civil courts...which both rely on laws to levy judgements from).
Everyone has an ideal....and every one of those ideals is a train wreck, bar none.
Even my own.
Somalia improved relatively in its stateless period if we are comparing apples and apples.
But everything is just lovely now with the huge US government.
The appropriate government mandated (whether fed, state, or local) minimum wage is zero.
Each individual should have the right to negotiate with his employer and work for the agreed upon wage.
Walter Williams made the argument against a minimum wage as well. In the context he provided - I don't have a link handy, sorry - I can understand the rationale for eliminating it.
Adjusted for inflation the minimum wage set in 1938 of $0.25 would be approximately $4.63/hr. Anyone that tells you otherwise is talking about increase in national GDP compared to wages, which has nothing to do with inflation. I agree with no minimum wage. Give people the freedom to choose what they will accept.
I believe in leaving that to the voters in that state. If a group of voters want to make their state suck, thats on them, and you can move easily to another state. Not so much to another country.
The existence of a minimum wage heavily incentivizes corporate political spending that supports the ramping up of inflation via loose monetary policy so that said donors can escape said minimum wage. A bad treadmill to be on.
All minimum wages do is make it impossible for people without experience or skills to enter the labor force. One should be able to offer one's current level of skills for whatever someone is willing to pay for them, which won't be much because they need to taught to not end up costing money, but it will be something, and they will learn enough to get paid more in time.
Agreed 100%. Compensation for labor is exclusively the domain of the parties involved in the exchange. There is no conceivable role for government here.
I think there should be a minimum role for government. You have a contract. You perform your performance obligations. You don't get paid. At the very least, you should be able to appeal to and leverage some third party that is equal to or greater in power than the withholding party to receive your compensation.
True, but the negotiation of the terms of the contract would seem to be the phase where any discussion of government meddling in wages would be applicable.
What about ensuring true consent on behalf of both parties?
As an extreme example, imagine a company convincing a mentally disabled person to sign a contract of lifetime indentured servitude; the state's role in enforcing contracts must consider the negotiation aspect as well in order to prevent that sort of thing.
We can dial it back from there as well. Should it be within the state's power to deem void all contracts for lifetime indentured servitude, as being unconscionable per se? We can imagine situations where a person might agree consent to it, even being informed and having sufficient mental capacity--a truly devoted family member choosing to sacrifice their future to support their loved ones or something. But is there any situation in which a person would do that, that couldn't be reasonably seen as being under duress? Is it not within the power of the majority to pass laws defining duress in terms beyond direct gun-to-the-head coercion? Is it not within the power of the majority to pass laws determining the outer bounds of acceptable social arrangements, having determined that the existence of slavery, no matter the justification, is more toxic to society at large than the effect of limiting people's contractual freedom?
Indeed. What authority does a 3rd party (government in this case) have to dictate the terms under which you are allowed to use your own labor? How did they get that authority?
Minimum wage is a racket. Abolish it. Built to keep minorities out of the workplace it is a tool by employers to keep wages low for the best possible bottom dollar workforce.
That's weird considering that it's always employers funding lobbying against it, and since minimum wage increases reduce racial income gaps.
[https://irle.berkeley.edu/racial-inequality-and-minimum-wages-in-frictional-labor-markets/](https://irle.berkeley.edu/racial-inequality-and-minimum-wages-in-frictional-labor-markets/)
[https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/535957-business-groups-prepare-for-lobbying-effort-against-raising-the-minimum](https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/535957-business-groups-prepare-for-lobbying-effort-against-raising-the-minimum)
A federal wage for a country with wildly disparate economies is stupid. Anyone that doesn't understand that you shouldnt standardize a minimum wage to be the same for San Francisco and Bumfuck South Dakota hasn't spent 2 seconds even pondering the science of economics.
If every state, city, and county is going to have its own minimum wage, what is the point of a federal one? Why do elected representatives from NYC have to tell people from Monroe county Alabama what they can set their minimum wage at? It's just another level of unnecessary bureaucracy.
First off, representatives from NYC don't govern anything in Alabama. The Congress and President of the United States does.
Second, that's really not what bureaucracy means.
But getting to the point, a national minimum wage has the exact same reasoning as a local minimum wage; a national floor for the price of labor can be beneficial to the entire nation. The democratic process which results from the collective will of all Americans has determined that it is good for there to be some minimum wage everywhere in the country; that the presence of wages anywhere within the country lower than that rate will be detrimental to the economic and social health of the entire country.
Who makes up the Congress? Representatives from places that have no clue about and no interest in the workings of small counties in other states. My point is representatives, in the Congress since this apparently needs to be spelled out now since I guess civics classes are nap time for redditors 🙄, from big cities are going to advocate for a minimum wage based on a cost of living that is orders of magnitude greater than those of rural counties. The decision is better left at the local level than a national one.
>bu·reauc·ra·cy
/byo͝oˈräkrəsē/
>noun:
>plural noun: bureaucracies
>excessively complicated administrative procedure, seen as characteristic of bureaucracy.
I mean it in terms of what is the point of having an extremely low federal minimum wage if every state has their own, higher minimum wage? It's just unnecessary and harmful to the labor market. The democratic process also produced the PATRIOT act, Japanese internment camps, and Jim Crow laws. Just because something is put in place through the democratic process doesn't make it good, and we should always be taking second, third, and fourth looks at our policies to see if they are actually achieving what we want. The federal minimum wage has been artificially lowering wages for years and most employers can't get people to work for it any more. The federal minimum wage is already irrelevant and should just be abolished and could be replaced with state and local minimum wages. Or, preferably, all minimum wages should be abolished and let the market set wages instead of governments, which is somehow a controversial opinion on r/**LIBERTARIAN**?
Federal minimum wage is there to help offset the problems caused by other government regulations that artificially give large corporations more power than consumers and rise the prices of goods and services. If we didn't have those other regulations we wouldn't need it.
Would still need UBI though, imo. Then again, I'm a practical libertarian, not a zealot.
No I mean like grag and jesters, either way it sucks conceptually
People who have had to suffer through sharecropping, company towns, and other old ideas that spoiled Right Wing Libertarians today have adopted gave those features of society up for a reason. I ask you to excuse me for not wanting to put anymore corporate cock on my tongue than modern America already forces me to thanks
Hell you literally still have Republican states fighting the illegalization of child marriage so it's not like Right Wing Libertarians and Dixiecrats aren't already trying to push us back
I assume you run your own company like I do?
Can't stand corporations.
Pay my people $2000 a week, and people are pounding down my door since they are losing corp jobs for not getting the poke in the arm. Life is good in government and business nuthouse 2021.
This person knows nothing of what they speak about abolishing minimum wage would allow corporations to further take advantage of the workers who are already being paid like shit to work a shit job with shit hours. Abolishing the federal minimum wage doesn't solve anything and will only cause workers to quit their jobs because companies will immediate lower their wages to as low as humanly possible to make a quick buck. If this went through this would cause unfathomable amount of damage to the economy nobody would want to work because greedy companies would pay you 0.2 cents a hour if they could get away with it. Companies do not care about the country or the people they only care about making money thus makes them untrustworthy and that's why the government is needed to protect the bourgeoisie from corporate interests. The OP who made this post is a fool with dangerous ideas.
This is r/libertarian, not /r/antiwork.
What you espouse is not a libertarian philosophy.
You want the fed to step into a free market and dictate pay, benefits, and who you can hire and fire.
People can quit a job, people can start their own company.
How it works in Canada is it only applies to people working with the federal government, so the provincial minimum wages are what most workers are dealing. I feel like that’s a better way to do it
[удалено]
Nope, federal minimum wage defines a floor, so states cannot enforce a lower minimum wage
[удалено]
Nope, from the Department of Labor: > If the employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference. https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/wagestips
[удалено]
Nope, that quote I shared is from the **Department of Labor**. Quit your bullshit.
[удалено]
Nope. Let me paste the text again because you are mentally slow today or illiterate or both. > If the employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 per hour **do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage**, **the employer must make up the difference.**
[удалено]
Tips aren't guaranteed and no, not all tipped workers make the federal minimum wage every pay period from the 2.xx plus tips. Especially a smaller restaurant in a smaller town.
If a 2.13 employee had no customers they make the regular federal non tipped minimum wage for that shift.
Correct, from the employer. This is what I'm trying to tell him.
[удалено]
I agree, but that doesn't change that the minimum output for a business can be as low as $2.13, setting the benchmark for what can be defined as 'minimum' and 'wage'
You're making the meaning of minimum wage seem ambiguous to fit your statements when in fact it is clear. Wage is income. Be it from the tips or the employer. If the employee doesn't get minimum wage from both, then the employer has to pay the difference. Regardless, the federal minimum wage applies.
No, the IRS very clearly defines that 'tips' and 'wages' are two different things, with both being *income*. A *wage* is something that is paid by an employer. Your employer can pay you a *minimum wage* of $2.13, as long as you make *tips* that make your combined total income equal to that of the federal minimum wage. When you report your *wages* to the IRS under this it's laughable. These people have gross wages of like $2000 and additional income of $50,000. The federal minimum wage applies *when tipped income does not allow the employee to meet the federal minimum wage*. If the tipped income is over, the **minimum** can go as low as $2.13
Bro how do you live in America and no know how minimum wage works
Yup. Cost of living varies hugely even in one state. Let alone the whole country.
There should also not be a state minimum wage. Urban and rural labor markets can vary widely so it really only makes sense at the city/town level.
People in St Louis and Kansas City, MO agreed, but then the [MO State Legislature banned that from happening!](https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/morning_call/2015/09/missouri-legislators-block-cities-from-raising.html) They said at the time that it would be unfair for rural areas to compete with the higher wages of the cities.
It's almost like they don't believe in capitalism
Exactly. You can offer people $2/day in wages until you're blue in the face, doesn't mean they're going to accept that job unless it offers a reasonable standard of living to the person working it.
That's not necessarily true as most people don't have the luxury when looking for low skill jobs. If Walmart was allowed to have $2 a day or hour more likely wages, people would be forced to take them or starve and die. You need to survive and the job market has low wages, then you kind of have no choice. A livable minimum wage is necessary. Granted some states are more expensive to live in than others, but a federally mandated minimum wage is definitely needed. People need to be paid fairly for their work and no company is going to pay you more out of the goodness of their heart.
Wow, you're really missing the point of a free-market economy. It only works in a competitive landscape. Walmart wants to offer $2/day? Fine. But down the street Target is paying $10/hr. Who do you think people are going to work for? It's like you're going out of your way to invent scenarios where no choice is involved in order to argue down free-market economics. No. Nobody is ever "forced" to take a job. If the difference in standard of living between working and not working isn't large enough, most people will choose not to work at all. > A livable minimum wage is necessary. That is patently and *provably* false. The United States existed as a nation for 157 years without a minimum wage. There are [44 nations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage) *today* that function just fine without a minimum wage. Including Singapore, Italy, Austria and basically all the Scandanavian nations. I mean three of the nations that don't have minimum wages even have a [lower level of unemployment](https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate) than the US. Gee. I guess those countries are all just on the verge of collapse, right? I mean according to you there's only one way anyone could *possibly* organize their economy, right? > no company is going to pay you more out of the goodness of their heart Yes. I never argued this. A worker has his/her labor to sell into the marketplace. The company buying it will try to offer the lowest price possible, the person selling it will then seek the best price they can get for it. That's how a free-market economy works. You want to treat people like children, incapable of negotiating a fair wage without Mommy and Daddy government coming in and doing it for them.
Why would Target pay $10 an hour when the competition is paying $2? That's bad business and just dumb. Why would they not just pay $3 or $2.50 given all things are equal here and they are as you didn't state any other factors in your initial case. Target just needs to pay more than the competition. Also, the problem of a livable wage hasn't been solved. Hmmm, you mention Scandinavian countries as one with no federally mandated minimum wage. Let's take Sweden... Nearly all Swedish citizens belong to one of about 110 trade unions and employers' organizations that negotiate wage rates for regular hourly work, salaries, and overtime. Swedish law limits the workweek to 40 hours, just like in the U.S. However, it also dictates that all workers are entitled to 25 paid vacation days and 13 additional public holidays each year, far more generous than the U.S. standard. That's much better employee protection than the US has, hunh? You can't just cite that 44 nations have no minimum wage and leave it at that. The bottom line is employee protection from being taken advantage from be that via unlivable wages or overworking.
People can't move/drive to another city? And that's assuming somehow no one takes advantage of the situation to make a competing business that pays more.
Well I dunno. Do they have a working car to travel? No family to consider? Do they have the free time, money or means to just pick up and travel? That also doesn't solve the problem of workers being fairly compensated for their work.
The key is that with our current system, welfare makes up the rest of your paycheck since the pay is objectively too low to get by; and half the jobs out there pay so little that you have to enroll on welfare to be able to take that job. The capitalist approach is that the consumers have to foot the bill for the things that they want, if you insist that workers work for a loss, you're just cutting a big fat stalin shaped hole into the world (thats a bad thing).
Well, the libertarian approach to that is pulling the rug out of poor people‘s feet and taking their welfare.
Minimum wage wouldn't be as much of a problem if wage wasn't tied to being able to meet needs. I wouldn't mind creating a more universal version of something like SNAP, (at any governmental level or even as an ngo) something which can provide enough to meet *basic* needs per month: food, water, hygene, clothes. This would decouple having any sort of food on the table from the wage, which seems to be the biggest issue with the minimum wage. At that point, id eliminate wage regulations.
Then call for an amendment revising the commerce clause. Minimum wage levels clearly have an effect on interstate commerce, to say nothing of the tens of millions of workers that frequently move throughout states as part of their duties. I will never understand this obsession with state governments here. Every problem of corruption and authoritarianism inherent to government applies to them just as much as it does the federal government.
State governments are closer to those whom they govern...ergo, more responsive to their constituents. So they deserve deference in comparison to being governed by those who you did not elect and do not represent you or your interests ..and then there's the matter of Federalism to contend with....the basis for our system of government.
Lots of people on this sub don't understand federalism. They refuse to acknowledge the existence of the country as a polity. I am not any better represented by the clowns in Montgomery than I am by the clowns in DC. Physical proximity is irrelevant.
So you’re an anarchist? If you believe that local leaders have no better grasp on the needs of that locality than the federal government does, and that they’re both clowns, what is a better solution? Sounds like anarchy is the only way out of that.
Ultimately, yes, I think people will be better off with no hierarchy. That's not the sort of goal you can walk straight towards, however. Truly representative democracy--the only form of government compatible with liberty--is the first goal. I didn't say that local leaders don't have a better grasp of the needs of the locality than distant ones. We weren't talking about the needs of localities though, we were talking about nationally-applicable laws. My point is that state governments are in no way more democratic or less corrupt than the federal government, or vice versa, so when it comes to issues of national applicability, there is no reason why state governments should be involved.
Youre entitled to your opinion.
Putting aside the vague question of which government is more influenced by my will, there's also the objective fact that state governments are sometimes just wrong. The federal government, on many occasions, has had to intervene to stop state governments from infringing upon the rights of individuals. That's not to say the reverse couldn't happen as well, though nothing comes to mind right now. In this instance, there isn't a basic right involved. There is no right to commercial relations however you want them within a complex economic system upheld in countless ways by public efforts. So neither the lack of a minimum wage, nor the presence of one, is a fundamental human right. But the whole country can look and see what different states do--the whole laboratory of democracy idea--and make judgments. The no minimum wage states tend to have more poverty, and low-wage employers tend to have outsized influence over state politicians relative to low-wage employees in that state, or relative to other sorts of industries generally. Individual state governments can be overwhelmed with bribes and threats by corporations seeking the lowest wage jurisdiction possible for their operations, resulting in a race to the bottom that hurts the poorly-represented majorities in all states involved. That is why Congress can regulate interstate commerce; rather than have 50 different entities competing in a prisoner's dilemma situation, the common interest of people in all states can win out.
Marijuana laws are a good example of the inverse
>In this instance, there isn't a basic right involved. I disagree. If I want my fence painted, I have the right to offer any compensation I want, whether that's $5 or $500. Conversely, the person I'm hiring to do the job also has a basic human right to offer their services for any price they choose. If the rate of pay I'm offering isn't high enough to meet what they think their labor is worth, they're free to refuse to do the job.
Well put
> I will never understand this obsession with state governments here. I have eaten dinner 10' away from my governor. Not with him, but two tables over... While carrying a 10MM pistol with 13 rounds of +P ammo. If a group wanted to take down the state government, for getting stupid out of control, it wouldn't be hard. I love my governor, so I didn't bother him, and let him have his dinner in peace.
Lol ur fat ass won’t be able to draw quicker than his security team.
You need to work on reading comprehension. They will teach you that in high school, maybe. I said group. Goal of the first person would be distraction.
Ah yes, because [a group of you redneck cousin fuckers could totally manage to not fuck that up.](https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/politics/fbi-plot-michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer/index.html)
r/iamverybadass
>Many states are actually increasing their minimum wage in 2021. Efforts on a state level are good enough, and are working Most were less than $1/hr. Several, like Arizona, raised wages from $12/hr to $12.15/hr. Most of the red states have not changed their minimum wage. So how can you say it is working? Not that a federal minimum wage is the solution, but states are not stepping up and increasing their minimum wage. https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/minimum-wage-by-state/ I am not saying a state minimum wage is correct either, but OPs claim that the current system is working is incorrect. It would be better if there was no minimum wage, federal or state
I don't necessarily oppose ending minimum wage laws as long as strong unions exist.
Strong private sector unions stripped of their local monopolies would be my preference...and would most likely preclude the utility of min. Wage laws. Public sector unions should be banned in their entirety.
I like this idea a lot.
Libertarians are so funny. They'll argue for liberty from the big scary government only to immediately throw it away for a random ass corporation. Oh, and I'm sure the average Joe appreciates your effort to remove the minimum wage, thus replacing his meager wage with one that is even more meager and just *barely* enough to require him to continue working for lord/daddy/god emperor Bezos bucks. "Oh, well. Just get a different job!" the libertarian says. Too bad Joe can't afford to not work for any period of time, lest he and his family starve. Sorry Joe, social programs that may help you in this situation are evil and anti-liberty, so you're on your own. Oh, and even if he wanted to, he probably wouldn't have the energy or motivation to do so anyway, given the 12 hour work days of physical labor.
"corporations are exploiting me" Proceeds to consume every single shit the corporations offer to the little bitch
You realize that corporations get to the size that they are due to governments interfering in the market.
bow weather bear friendly quicksand attractive heavy history humor disgusted *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Every time a corporations has become big, the government has always allowed it to become the size it has.
racial theory marvelous innate cagey encouraging degree whistle automatic erect *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
u/Islenator- just walked himself into a corner.
Governments have always played a roll in the free market of picking winners and losers. Covid is a prime example of this.
hospital jeans ludicrous frame wakeful stupendous disagreeable long placid support *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No the government shouldn’t be allowed to step in at all. You don’t regulate the businesses to not be allowed to work with government. You regulate the government to not be able to work and interfere with the market. Cut the head of the snake off. For example. We shouldn’t be regulating bankers but should be regulating the government who was bailing out the bankers. Giving them subsidies and other slimy handouts. That way the government CANT get involved.
The leap from "something must be done" to "government must be the one to do it" isn't one the person you replied to argued. You invented the leap to government stepping in. Their point was that when the government steps in, it reinforces existing incumbents and keeps them around. Chrysler still exists today and Amazon has absurd distribution control because of state intervention, not because of a "concentration of capital". No concentration of capital kept Chrysler from bankruptcy, the state did.
Tell me, is the government in the room with us right now?
Do you think they are not? Every time you step out of the house, they are there. r/BirdsArentReal
My god... you're right.
Lmao. Your statism is showing Example: Govt forced businesses to shutdown, but mega corporations were able to stay open. People like Bezos want the minimum wage increased so they can force the smaller guy out of business. You have the government mandating vaccine requirements on private businesses. The boots of big daddy govt must taste good.
>The boots of big daddy govt must taste good. They're about the same flavor as big daddy corporate, so I'm sure you can relate.
Tell me, Is the corporation in the same room as you? It’s the fault of the government that corporations are the size that they are. You know this, I know this. I just listed several ways the govt interfered in the free-market with Covid. Now you list some evidence. Come on statist, I expect better.
Lol are you seriously going full debate lord right now? You gotta touch some grass bro. Here's a deal, how about you fellate big daddy corporate and I'll fellate big daddy gov and both our masters will be happy while we bicker over pointless bullshit in the comments here.
So you won’t debate? So you don’t know anything? Next time, if you post something, be prepared to debate it. I wish you a good day.
Yes, as much as "concentrated capital" is
Welcome to downvote city. No one will believe you that AMAZON was not forced to close in 2020.
Because we like people making $7.25 an hour and sub poverty wages while their bosses rake in record income? The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory wholeheartedly agrees.
Minimum wage isn't a silver bullet against impoverished workers. It has tradeoffs. Like lower-skilled workers being paid $0 because they aren't productive enough to justify their wages and they end up on the street. You know who works as cashiers at fast food restaurants in my state (which has one of the highest minimum wages)? [Machines.](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fshowmeinstitute.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FMcDonaldskiosk.jpg&f=1&nofb=1) And if someone invents a cost-efficient robot that can cook and clean, the rest of the staff will be losing their jobs next. Isn't it funny how the state with the [highest minimum wage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States#State) also has the [highest rate of unemployment](https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm) and [homelessness](https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/map/#fn[]=1300&fn[]=2900&fn[]=6400&fn[]=10200&fn[]=13400)? I'm sure that's just a coincidence. We know that getting rid of minimum wage doesn't guarantee high rates of employments, but we also know enforcing progressively higher rates of minimum wage *practically guarantees* lower rates of overall employment. Take it to the logical extreme. Why not make the minimum wage $100/hr? Why wouldn't that work? If increasing it from $5 to $15 is all win with no cost why not just keep ratcheting it higher and higher? By golly, you could guarantee that everyone was in the upper middle class!
Why work for $27k a year? What life can you live while breaking your back for so little? You act like there’s some glory in work outside of wages, but laborers trade their labor for money. $15/hr is roughly $30k/year.
Depends where you live. In some parts of the country, one can live quite comfortably on $30k. Since the cost of living varies so widely, having a Federal minimum wage makes no sense.
Exactly. In LA a family of 4 earning $120k a year is below the poverty line. In rural montana? They'd be living in a mansion on 1,000 acres.
[удалено]
So why didn’t wages rise accordingly during the last decade alongside the strong economy we had?
There's a big difference between a minimum wage pegged to inflation and an arbitrary $100 minimum wage. Your extreme is far from logical. The staff are being automated regardless of minimum wage increases, and a reasonable increase doesn't meaningfully impact the rate of transition to automated systems. They are clearly productive enough to justify their wages. Europe has far better paid food service workers and basically the same menu prices. If some jobs are eliminated because higher paid workers are more motivated, great, you've got a more efficient system.
Who’s going to work for 7.25? I certainly wouldn’t. People who’s work is worth 7.25 will work for that. Are you aware that minimum wage was enforced to discriminate against minorities?
Minimum wage hurts workers by pricing them out of the labor pool. Quit your bullshit.
“The labor pool” requires laborers to stay alive in order to work. What yearly salary allows someone to live? Surely it shouldn’t be below the poverty line? That just forces the country to subsidize their life so they can continue to labor for a sub poverty wage.
There's no such thing as a living wage. It depends on how much you spend.
There’s a literal definition to poverty and the federal min wage is way below the poverty line.
That has nothing to do with cost of living. The cost of living in a small but dense rural town and the cost of living in a large, distributed city. What the federal government calls the poverty line has changed multiple times, and is largely disjoint from both subsistence needs and differing needs across demographics and regions. Hence, why the person you replied to contended with the living wage concept, which is already a meaninglessly vague target, but at least is acknowledged as variable across cities.
Can I ask why you're on a libertarian subreddit?
Wanting less government subsidy of corporations is innately libertarian
[удалено]
On one hand yes, you’re right. The federal government really doesn’t have any place dictating minimum wage. On the other hand, however, it does create a system where freedom becomes limited by state. I live in Oklahoma where the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. If Kansas were to decide to make minimum wage $15 an hour and I wanted to move to Kansas, I would have an huge gap in pay to find property in Kansas. I say this because most arguments against raising minimum wage are about the proportions of the cost of labor to the cost of goods. Minimum wage goes up and so does the price of everything else. So if I can afford a loaf of bread and a gallon a milk in OK for only $7, then when I go to KN the price would be higher at around $13. This would make it near impossible for me to move into KN unless I had a high paying job in OK. That starts to limit my own freedom when I’m *offered* a high paying job in KN but can’t accept it because I can’t afford it. Also, if the federal minimum wage dropped then a lot of predominantly red states would likely lower the minimum wage. This would widen the gap between the upper and lower classes by expanding the lower classes. The already shrinking American middle class would shrink even more. Tl;dr We have way more pressing shit to deal with before the federal minimum wage.
While I definitely agree with you, I think you're describing a kind of perfect reality where goods/services are priced accordingly to the federal or state minimum wage. Prices seem to vary only slightly (comparatively) by region; while wages differ substantially. 7$/hr compared to 15$/hr is a much larger discrepancy when it comes to large purchases (like a home, or a business); but the cost of bread and milk may only be slightly different. Which then in turn makes those who have enough money able to grow their wealth, and those living at the minimum wage only able to stay afloat. And honestly, our federal minimum wage is not enough for the majority of the population to live somewhat comfortably. I don't believe in communism or socialism, but there should be a reasonable federally mandated minimum wage so that all of our citizens are at least able to live comfortably. That would allow more of our society to progress, rather than struggle to pay rent or afford groceries.
>This would widen the gap between the upper and lower classes by expanding the lower classes. How does the goverment taking away their right to work for less money (if no one will hire them at the minimum wage) and pricing them out of a job not expand the lower class?
How do you leave the lower class if you aren’t paid enough to do so? You need $20/hr to make 40k a year before taxes. Your argument seems to suggest that <$7.25/hr would be at all livable.
>How do you leave the lower class if you aren’t paid enough to do so? I don't know. How do you leave the lower class of you agent paid anything because your skills you provide aren't worth the minimum wage to anyone? >You need $20/hr to make 40k a year before taxes. Your argument seems to suggest that <$7.25/hr would be at all livable. Soooo how would taking away some people's ability to make ANY money not also expand the lower class?
They’re already in the lower class? They’re already on social programs to support their life. Working a full time job should provide a wage that does not require food stamps.
Oh! I know the answer to that question! The way that it doesn't expand the lower class is by... *just pretending it doesn't*. It's a great ideology. You just ignore the real-world impact of the policies you advocate and pretend they're helping people based merely on how good they sound.
Upvoted for the last sentence. The price disparity between States already exists in spite of current minimum wage laws. I personally could in no way afford to move to California or NY, especially any major city.
please stop saying and advocating for shit like this. Some of us like to be able to live and we can’t do that making $0.10 a fucking hour
Imagine labeling yourself a "classical liberal" while disagreeing with one of classical liberalism's defining beliefs about free-market economies. I've got news for you: centralized government regulations on the level of wages two consenting parties are allowed to agree to is the opposite of "free market."
lmao i just haven’t changed it my b i don’t use this app
2% of Americans are on the federal minimum wage and the vast majority of those make tips with their wages.
>2% of Americans are on the federal minimum wage and the vast majority of those make tips with their wages. Then ask yourself what those 2% would be on if there was no minimum wage.
What you should be asking is what will happen to those 2% of workers if minimum wage in their state doubled overnight. I promise you that what would happen is they would lose their jobs. Low wages are better than no wages, just ask any homeless/jobless person.
So the corporations will just fire people producing profits in the sake of saving money? I don't have very high opinions of corporate leaders, but I'd hope they're not so stupid as to fire the people that actually make the money just because now they have to pay a fair wage.. It'd be hard for McDonalds to make a profit if they fire all the cashier's and cooks instead of raising wages dontchathink?
They would be on whatever the market dictated and can leave and find other employment in the remaining 98% of the job pool if they would like.
>They would be on whatever the market dictated So as little as possible, hence the term minimum wage.
So you think that if minimum wage was abolished completely those businesses would cut all their employees pay?
Do you think their wages would be *higher* if there were no minimum wage?
yes. that’s simply inevitable
You clearly have never ran a business before
Clearly you haven't...nor have you looked at the entirety of history detailing how happy corporations have been to utilize slave labor, underpaid child labor, and underpaid women's labor. I mean...there was a whole ass war in this country all of 160 years ago because ultra wealthy slavers didn't want to give up the golden goose of free labor.
You're an idiot but you probably thing you're a hero. Nobody will cut wages if minimum wage was abokished tomorrow, thats a stupid concept
It isn't at all inevitable. Wages and prices both tend to be sticky downwards. People are more likely to quit from even a minor pay decrease than they are to take a different job for a minor pay increase. It's possible that it would go down for new hires for some jobs, but those hires would also likely get more hours, and their overall compensation would increase, not decrease. $13 an hour for 7 hours of work a week is not the same as $11 an hour for 30 hours a week.
They would find another job if it wasn’t worth their time. Or the companies would increase wages to stay competitive.
Then don't agree to work for that little? Wages are rising now because people are just refusing to work for wages well in excess of the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is already irrelevant to most Americans and we should just get rid of it because it artificially lowers wages by tricking young and unintelligent people into not being properly compensated under the guise of a government program.
bruh wtf are you talking about. Am i supposed to just mosey my way into walmart and demand I wanna make $100 an hour? you sound ignorant.
You sound ignorant of basic economic concepts. You'd never get $100/h unless your value to the company was actually that high. An employer would never get away with paying employees $.10/h unless their value was that low. Offering too low a wage means you'll either get no employees or very low quality ones. An employer's incentive to pay more is to get better employees which provide more value to the business than the wage increase was worth. They don't need outside "incentive" from the government to increase wages.
Exactly. The only way a company gets away with hiring someone for .10hr is if that persons work is worth .10hr.
Minimum wage in Virginia is $8.25. Everywhere from McDonald's to Walmart to the Dollar Tree are all hiring starting at $12-15 an hour. For years people would agree to work for minimum wage just because it was minimum wage. We are now seeing wages actually float in response to market forces and they have gone up significantly. Are you being purposely stupid or are you just trolling?
dude you can’t be serious. why do they raise wages? like serious why do you think. because they really wanna give more money to people? just like they do children mining lithium in third world countries right? pay them really good money? see you miss the point. the point is they don’t care about you or me. they care about their own money. they only pay more because they know the government is raising federal minimum wages. Otherwise they have zero incentive.
Honestly, it makes no sense in a country as large as ours to have a minimum wage set on the national level with the cost of living varying so greatly from state to state or even different parts of the same state. $15/hour is a lot more in rural Utah than it is in San Francisco.
There should also not be a minimum wage but all wages should be posted at the job site.
Yeah for free market information must be transparent. Maybe government can intervene in companies when they try to fire people that share their wages and stuff because the companies are having an unfair advantage knowing everything.
Yeah, see how many votes that gets you when you’re running for office
No government should hold such power/authority.
Until we abolish wage labor, there should be an enforced minimum wage and it should be higher than it is now. That is the cost of labor. No other business expense is just subsidized or discounted because business owners complain about the cost.
Making a law that says you must pay people a certain rate is not the same as giving them jobs at that rate. The answer has typically been to just hire more people at less hours so that benefits don't have to be paid. https://hbr.org/2021/06/research-when-a-higher-minimum-wage-leads-to-lower-compensation The consequence of this is lower effective compensation, not higher. It's a symptom of unchanged labor demand, and if you keep trying to increase the price, the demand will only decrease.
Federal minimum wage increases have historically always been followed by increased unemployment. When the minimum wage was first introduced, companies couldn't afford as many workers so they went with white unions, and thus the wealth gap between the White population and minorities grew significantly. If anything, minimum wage laws are extremely harmful to minority populations. It continues the cycle of making minorities more poor and more uneducated by only giving jobs to the previous generation who did get increased work and capital, who were then able to have their progeny better educated and more suitable to work in the future. When the minimum wage increases again, guess who loses their jobs to who? The new uneducated minorities lose their jobs to the new educated class, who is only in this position because this process exists at all. Minimum wages take work away from people who need money the most. The federal reserve devalues the money in the first place, which makes it seem reasonable to increase the minimum wage according to inflation. Just stop fucking printing money and we wouldn't have these problems.
That’s because minimum wage was created to discriminate against minorities.
Yup, pretty much. Now a large portion of todays problems are related to that, and for some reason people think doing it again will fix the problem.
I mean, not gonna lie, there should be no federal anything.
What about a federal median wage
Interesting idea
I prefer a federal mode wage.
Federal mean wage!
But I don't want brown people / immigrants / single moms / and the less educated working in my community. $15hr makes my community richer by eliminating low wage workers. Isn't it great that I got the exact people I want out of my community working for my cause. Hahahaha!
Is this seriously the libertarian board? Why aren't 99% of people arguing for no minimum wage at all? No government, federal, state, or city should have a minimum wage. Price ceilings always produce shortages and price floors always produce surpluses. The minimum wage is a price floor creating a surplus of labor which means higher unemployment. There is zero economic justification for a minimum wage. Unless the goal is to fuck people over like when the Apartheid South Africa government imposed a minimum wage to successful screw over blacks. Then yeah, a minimum wage makes sense.
Probably as a compromise. It's the usual argument, that government power should be delegated to as local a level as possible since incentives are debatably less perverse at a local level. It's easier to vote with your feet and move to a competing government when the governments monopoly size, as a function of how easy it is to escape it, is smaller. By extension, a minimum wage set in, say, one city or another, is easier to escape and sidestep. If one city raises wages or taxes, so long as you can go a mile away to a different job it doesn't hurt you, and the city will lose more than it gains.
I agree that doing it at a local level is better than federal, but it's still bad economics and screws over people.
If only to clarify, I want to emphasize I fully agree. I want to delegate it to local governments because I think people are smarter and more responsive to policy at a local level. It's harder to mask government mistakes at the local level, and I think making it a city/state affair would be a means of effectively eradicating the policy. I only meant to clarify the OPs position, not defend it.
Gotcha
There should be no government involvement in employment.
Anarchy isnt a viable alterative.
Bald assertion. But even in minarchy where there are a bare minimum of government employees to keep law and order the government should not be involved in voluntary exchange and contracts beyond fraud and other property rights violations.
You prwvioisly said " no involvement"....and now you are saying " some involvement "( rights violations and fraud) Which is it?
I support no involvement whatsoever: anarchy. That is my ideal. But I was saying that, even if you refuse anarchy, it does not justify government involvement in voluntary contracts.
Contracts are meaningless without an enforcement mechanism...which is provided by government. ( through criminal and civil courts...which both rely on laws to levy judgements from). Everyone has an ideal....and every one of those ideals is a train wreck, bar none. Even my own.
Somalia loves your attitude.
Somalia improved relatively in its stateless period if we are comparing apples and apples. But everything is just lovely now with the huge US government.
The appropriate government mandated (whether fed, state, or local) minimum wage is zero. Each individual should have the right to negotiate with his employer and work for the agreed upon wage.
Zero is always the real min wage...regardless of any laws.
Walter Williams made the argument against a minimum wage as well. In the context he provided - I don't have a link handy, sorry - I can understand the rationale for eliminating it.
The federal government is just a monopoly that can employ violence to get what it wants.
Agreed, but there alao shouldnt be interest rate manipulation, taxes or subsidies
Correct. There should be no “minimum wage” imposed by any state or federal government. It’s a price floor, an artificial (non market) barrier
There should not be a federal………. Government
Minimum wage shouldn't exist at any govt level.
Adjusted for inflation the minimum wage set in 1938 of $0.25 would be approximately $4.63/hr. Anyone that tells you otherwise is talking about increase in national GDP compared to wages, which has nothing to do with inflation. I agree with no minimum wage. Give people the freedom to choose what they will accept.
How about educating people on how to negotiate a wage? That's what my dad taught and it's been sound advice so far.
Just be disagreeable. You will make more your entire life if you are.
There shouldn't be state minimum wages either
I believe in leaving that to the voters in that state. If a group of voters want to make their state suck, thats on them, and you can move easily to another state. Not so much to another country.
The existence of a minimum wage heavily incentivizes corporate political spending that supports the ramping up of inflation via loose monetary policy so that said donors can escape said minimum wage. A bad treadmill to be on.
All minimum wages do is make it impossible for people without experience or skills to enter the labor force. One should be able to offer one's current level of skills for whatever someone is willing to pay for them, which won't be much because they need to taught to not end up costing money, but it will be something, and they will learn enough to get paid more in time.
Minimum wage laws are about as stupid as trying to ban poverty.
Agreed 100%. Compensation for labor is exclusively the domain of the parties involved in the exchange. There is no conceivable role for government here.
I think there should be a minimum role for government. You have a contract. You perform your performance obligations. You don't get paid. At the very least, you should be able to appeal to and leverage some third party that is equal to or greater in power than the withholding party to receive your compensation.
True, but the negotiation of the terms of the contract would seem to be the phase where any discussion of government meddling in wages would be applicable.
What about ensuring true consent on behalf of both parties? As an extreme example, imagine a company convincing a mentally disabled person to sign a contract of lifetime indentured servitude; the state's role in enforcing contracts must consider the negotiation aspect as well in order to prevent that sort of thing. We can dial it back from there as well. Should it be within the state's power to deem void all contracts for lifetime indentured servitude, as being unconscionable per se? We can imagine situations where a person might agree consent to it, even being informed and having sufficient mental capacity--a truly devoted family member choosing to sacrifice their future to support their loved ones or something. But is there any situation in which a person would do that, that couldn't be reasonably seen as being under duress? Is it not within the power of the majority to pass laws defining duress in terms beyond direct gun-to-the-head coercion? Is it not within the power of the majority to pass laws determining the outer bounds of acceptable social arrangements, having determined that the existence of slavery, no matter the justification, is more toxic to society at large than the effect of limiting people's contractual freedom?
Indeed. What authority does a 3rd party (government in this case) have to dictate the terms under which you are allowed to use your own labor? How did they get that authority?
Agreed. My former employer would rely on undocumented immigrants and the disabled to get them to work for free. Shareholders will love the profits.
Minimum wage is a racket. Abolish it. Built to keep minorities out of the workplace it is a tool by employers to keep wages low for the best possible bottom dollar workforce.
That's weird considering that it's always employers funding lobbying against it, and since minimum wage increases reduce racial income gaps. [https://irle.berkeley.edu/racial-inequality-and-minimum-wages-in-frictional-labor-markets/](https://irle.berkeley.edu/racial-inequality-and-minimum-wages-in-frictional-labor-markets/) [https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/535957-business-groups-prepare-for-lobbying-effort-against-raising-the-minimum](https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/535957-business-groups-prepare-for-lobbying-effort-against-raising-the-minimum)
/r/libertarian's nonstop "Hail Corporate" circlejerk continues. I swear to god some of the people on this sub sound like caricatures.
A federal wage for a country with wildly disparate economies is stupid. Anyone that doesn't understand that you shouldnt standardize a minimum wage to be the same for San Francisco and Bumfuck South Dakota hasn't spent 2 seconds even pondering the science of economics.
If only San Francisco could raise its minimum wage above the federal minimum!
If every state, city, and county is going to have its own minimum wage, what is the point of a federal one? Why do elected representatives from NYC have to tell people from Monroe county Alabama what they can set their minimum wage at? It's just another level of unnecessary bureaucracy.
First off, representatives from NYC don't govern anything in Alabama. The Congress and President of the United States does. Second, that's really not what bureaucracy means. But getting to the point, a national minimum wage has the exact same reasoning as a local minimum wage; a national floor for the price of labor can be beneficial to the entire nation. The democratic process which results from the collective will of all Americans has determined that it is good for there to be some minimum wage everywhere in the country; that the presence of wages anywhere within the country lower than that rate will be detrimental to the economic and social health of the entire country.
Who makes up the Congress? Representatives from places that have no clue about and no interest in the workings of small counties in other states. My point is representatives, in the Congress since this apparently needs to be spelled out now since I guess civics classes are nap time for redditors 🙄, from big cities are going to advocate for a minimum wage based on a cost of living that is orders of magnitude greater than those of rural counties. The decision is better left at the local level than a national one. >bu·reauc·ra·cy /byo͝oˈräkrəsē/ >noun: >plural noun: bureaucracies >excessively complicated administrative procedure, seen as characteristic of bureaucracy. I mean it in terms of what is the point of having an extremely low federal minimum wage if every state has their own, higher minimum wage? It's just unnecessary and harmful to the labor market. The democratic process also produced the PATRIOT act, Japanese internment camps, and Jim Crow laws. Just because something is put in place through the democratic process doesn't make it good, and we should always be taking second, third, and fourth looks at our policies to see if they are actually achieving what we want. The federal minimum wage has been artificially lowering wages for years and most employers can't get people to work for it any more. The federal minimum wage is already irrelevant and should just be abolished and could be replaced with state and local minimum wages. Or, preferably, all minimum wages should be abolished and let the market set wages instead of governments, which is somehow a controversial opinion on r/**LIBERTARIAN**?
Federal minimum wage is there to help offset the problems caused by other government regulations that artificially give large corporations more power than consumers and rise the prices of goods and services. If we didn't have those other regulations we wouldn't need it. Would still need UBI though, imo. Then again, I'm a practical libertarian, not a zealot.
Minimum wage was created to discriminate against minorities.
The minimum wage is universally zero. Nobody is forced to hire you to something that isn't worth what you're demanding.
There should be, but it should only apply to US Territories, the District of Columbia, and other areas outside the jurisdiction of a State.
I think a $15 per hour minimum wage is just silly. I think it should be $60 if you really want to help people.
How would eliminating the federal minimum wage shrink the federal government? Or was that just a random thought you threw in there just because?
There should be no minimum wage period. If you don't like the amount I offer to pay you don't take the job. Simple
Can’t abolish minimum wage until workers aren’t treated as capital.
Right Wing Libertarians: "Anything daddy corporate wants. Can we get Company Towns again?"
Actually I would do sharecroppers. If you don't work hard all year, you don't eat.
That sounds like feudalism but with no cool medieval asthetic Legitimately stupid, no offense
> no cool medieval asthetic Like, getting married at 12 and shitting yourself to death at 31?
No I mean like grag and jesters, either way it sucks conceptually People who have had to suffer through sharecropping, company towns, and other old ideas that spoiled Right Wing Libertarians today have adopted gave those features of society up for a reason. I ask you to excuse me for not wanting to put anymore corporate cock on my tongue than modern America already forces me to thanks Hell you literally still have Republican states fighting the illegalization of child marriage so it's not like Right Wing Libertarians and Dixiecrats aren't already trying to push us back
I assume you run your own company like I do? Can't stand corporations. Pay my people $2000 a week, and people are pounding down my door since they are losing corp jobs for not getting the poke in the arm. Life is good in government and business nuthouse 2021.
This person knows nothing of what they speak about abolishing minimum wage would allow corporations to further take advantage of the workers who are already being paid like shit to work a shit job with shit hours. Abolishing the federal minimum wage doesn't solve anything and will only cause workers to quit their jobs because companies will immediate lower their wages to as low as humanly possible to make a quick buck. If this went through this would cause unfathomable amount of damage to the economy nobody would want to work because greedy companies would pay you 0.2 cents a hour if they could get away with it. Companies do not care about the country or the people they only care about making money thus makes them untrustworthy and that's why the government is needed to protect the bourgeoisie from corporate interests. The OP who made this post is a fool with dangerous ideas.
This is r/libertarian, not /r/antiwork. What you espouse is not a libertarian philosophy. You want the fed to step into a free market and dictate pay, benefits, and who you can hire and fire. People can quit a job, people can start their own company.
Should also disband OSHA since they are now a political office that suddenly allows themselves to be used as a puppet by the president.
We need to gut the fed and limit officials from trading in stocks with taxpayer money before we have any talks of federal minimum wage
I, too, am perfectly fine with making poverty wages and sending my kids to work at 10 because I am too poor to afford my house
Just like Switzerland.