Comment by patmcc
20 days ago
>>Good, a job that cannot support biological needs should not exist. It’s not a viable business.
>>Why should I pay a stealth subsidy to whatever business it is.
I think a lot of the argument around minimum wage is a disagreement (or misunderstanding?) about minimum wage workers.
Let's say you have a $10/hr minimum wage, and some company BigCo hires people and pays them $10/hr. Now, the disagreement: is BigCo actually getting $10/hr of value out of those workers? Or is it $20/hr, or $50/hr, or $5/hr, or $2/hr? Because I think that's a critical question both in terms of "should we subsidize those workers/BigCo" and "should we raise the minimum wage".
Some people do not currently, and may never, have skills that are worth $25/hr in terms of value produced in our economy. I think we need to make sure those people still have an acceptable standard of living, but I don't think setting the minimum wage to $25/hr is likely to do that.
> Now, the disagreement: is BigCo actually getting $10/hr of value out of those workers? Or is it $20/hr, or $50/hr, or $5/hr, or $2/hr?
I think this is the wrong question and it’s not our job to solve that.
Example - suppose I have a diamond mine, I can hire anyone with zero skill - homeless, drug addicts, criminals - pay them $5 an hour and they will dig up $1,000 of diamonds a day. What is the answer your own question - how much value is the business getting?
What we should consider instead is this - there is a certain cost for civilisation to continue. Workers must be born, educated, and then create the new generation. If they are not paid enough to continue the cycle, we will not let the country collapse, will we?
I as a taxpayer will end up picking up the tab in one way or another - whether it’s through food stamps, or in immigration or something else.
These jobs could be a total net loss once you account for carbon emissions and other externalities.
I would rather get these people to do charity work or plant trees instead.