Economics is ideology not science. The "textbooks" are whatever ideology is currently fashionable. Please also note that the "textbooks" will always support the current power elite unquestionably.
What harm do minimum wages do?
771–776 of 776 posts
Re: What harm do minimum wages do?
#772Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that is your contention exactly.
The only way you can claim that their argument is that is if you believe that the minimum wage simply means "paying poor people more", and nothing more, which is an absurd simplification, and ignores a lot of nuance (ex. employers don't have to pay the minimum wage, they can simply fire the employee [0]). If it's really the case that minimum wage means paying poor people more, surely we could just set the minimum wag…
Minimum-wage employees tend not to be people that can be easily eliminated or offshored. You really haven't thought any of this through, have you?
Re: What harm do minimum wages do?
#773The anti-min-wage / free market argument ignores a key fact: as a society we have decided we won't let people starve to death. So, if someone can't make ends meet, we will (via taxes) support them, at least to some extent. This support factors into the wage negotiation, allowing the employer to force a lower wage (absent a state imposed min). Absent state sate welfare style support many low wage (min and sub-min) job…
This gets to the heart of the problem of minimum wage. Walmart is often cast as a villain because many of their workers receive government benefits. Nobody stops to ask the very real question of: what if the average Walmart worker doesn’t add $X in value per hour. What if the value of the “Walmart Greeter” is less than that of minimum wage? Is it better for Walmart to fire this person because they’re not worth minimu…
Dude, that is crazy. Wal-Mart will NOT pay someone more than Wal-Mart thinks their pay is worth. If they were doing that, as soon as an enterprising middle-manager caught wind of it they could put together a presentation and earn themselves a juicy bonus by getting those people cut.
(Well, in theory.. in practice, corporate politics can get messy)
Re: What harm do minimum wages do?
#774> Textbooks state that, in the absence of a minimum wage, a worker is paid his “marginal product of labour”, which means the value of what he produces. > Just as a monopolist can set prices higher than would be the case in a competitive market, a monopsonist can set prices artificially lower. A lot of economic arguments forget these ideas. The labor market is not a free market: companies have more power in negotiatio…
> The only way to counter that push is by giving more power to the worker, and in low-skilled fields with lots of available workers, you need to do that through regulations and subsidies. The only way? You don't think unions can give more power to the worker?
You need regulations and subsidies to protect and make unions effective...
Re: What harm do minimum wages do?
#775Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is risk in any action taken due to the fundamental lack of information regarding events occurring in the future. I agree with you that much of it is luck, this at the same time does not mean because one is born lucky that they now need to suffer to bring someone else to their level. I disagree that it is meaningless, I believe that since no one person is entitled to anything from anyone else (to think otherwise…
I stopped reading when you started directly contradicting the fact based article with an armchair philosopher supposition. Your view is merely dogmatic and ignorant, the opposite of what I come to HN for.
The irony here...
Re: What harm do minimum wages do?
#776Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only way to counter that push is by giving more power to the worker, and in low-skilled fields with lots of available workers, you need to do that through regulations and subsidies. The only way? You don't think unions can give more power to the worker?
You need regulations and subsidies to protect and make unions effective...
Yeah, that's fair.