Only crybabies need a minimum wage law.

If you are earning your way in the marketplace, why do you need the state to dictate what your income should be? If you are only worth $3 or $4 per hour, why should you be paid any more? Is your employer supposed to pay you out of pity, based on your "need", or should you be paid according to the real value of the work you do? Independent contractors are paid according to their real value in the marketplace -- why not wage-earners too?

Could the answer be that independent contractors are grown-ups and so should be paid what they are really worth, but that wage-earners are crybabies and so have to be paid according to their "need"?

To be paid what you are worth is to be a grown-up and to be responsible and earn your income, but to have the state step in and dictate a price your employer must pay is to be childish and immature, and to be a parasite on those who are hurt by this, because others are hurt when anyone is paid more than their real value in the marketplace.

Those poor people who are hurt by minimum wage are all those who don't have a low-wage job but who are forced to pay higher prices because of the higher labor cost that business must pay, and also those who are prevented from getting a job or who lose their job because the employer is not willing to pay them the higher wage. For them a low-paying job is better than no job.

So these low-income people are made to suffer in order that other poor people in low-paying jobs can get a higher income than is their real value in the marketplace.

What is the real value of your labor? This is dictated by the law of supply and demand, just as the value of a loaf of bread or of a TV set or a pair of shoes is dictated by the law of supply and demand. If you're paid more than the price dictated by the law of supply and demand, you are paid more than you are worth and are being a parasite leeching off others.

If you don't agree with the above click here and you can have your argument posted in this page. If you favor the minimum wage law, be sure to include in your argument an answer to this question: If the minimum wage law is so good for the working poor, then why not increase the minimum wage to $30 or $40 or $50 per hour?

Also click here if you can provide a link to any page that answers the above or gives the counterarguments.

Proponents of the minimum wage law never want to answer the above question. They dismiss it as silly. And yet, for the minimum wage law to make sense, you have to be able to explain why the wage should be set at this level and not some other. Even if you cannot say what the exact level should be, you must be able to explain why it should be higher than $2 or $3 and yet lower than $30.

To not be able to answer this question is to admit that your point of view is irrational and you cannot give a good reason for it. And thus it is based on pure emotion and sentimentality and actually leads to more harm than good in the practical world.

Logic suggests that the same benefit/harm exists no matter what the minimum wage level is. The higher the level is, the more benefit there is to those workers who keep their jobs, but the greater is the number of workers who lose their jobs (or don't get hired at all).

So the benefit and harm each goes up or down with the higher or lower wage level that is set. At the lower level the benefit is also lower, so low as to be nearly negligible. To each worker who loses his/her job, or to each job-seeker who fails to get hired, the harm is extreme and offsets the marginal benefit to those workers who gain. And, you must factor in the harm to ALL consumers, both rich and poor, who must pay higher prices because of higher labor cost due to the minimum wage.

To add your input to this page click here.

---

Rebuttal from a minimum-wage defender

from: DAVE DIWA, A Worker from the Philippines
d_diwasg@yahoo.com

Got no quarrel with the practical logic of the view that if increasing minimum wages is good then why not $20 an hour and not $5.50 or$7.00s.

But you're missing the point. Minimum is a minimum, the floor wage below which no worker should be paid lest he or she ceases to be a human being. Market value is not what you pay for but the value, the life of a human being.

Money or wage is just the medium of exchange, it could be high or low depending on the kind of labor market or economy. Thus, a $20/hr minimum wage could make employees rich in a country with less than a thousand dollars per capta income. So would it be even if the country is US, Norway or Sweden.

The point is no worker, [whether] in the Phlippines, US, Norway or Sweden, should get a base or minimum pay below which he/she cannot sustain a livable life, not to say a decent, humane life.

---

Response to the above:

Minimum is a minimum, the floor wage below which no worker should be paid lest he or she ceases to be a human being.

You mean everyone who is paid less than the minimum wage is not human?

Suppose the minimum wage is raised to $15.00 per hour. Does that mean everyone who was paid less than $15.00 per hour was not human? Suppose the minimum wage is reduced to $1.00 per hour. Does that mean that all those earlier non-humans being paid only $3 or $4 per hour now become human?

Suppose the minimum wage is less in country A than in country B. If a worker migrates from A to B and continues receiving the same wage, does he become human, while before he was not human? Can the state cause someone to become human by decreasing the minimum wage?

I think a biologist or anthropologist would disagree with you that people paid less than the state's minimum wage are not human.

Market value is not what you pay for but the value, the life of a human being.

No, you're not buying a human life. You're buying his labor. And the only reason to buy it is to gain the benefit. Sometimes that benefit can just as well be produced by a machine, and the machine replaces the human laborer. It's not the worker or the machine that the buyer wants, but rather the work done or the results produced by the work, whether it is produced by a human or by a machine.

The point is no worker, [whether] in the Phlippines, US, Norway or Sweden, should get a base or minimum pay below which he/she cannot sustain a livable life, not to say a decent, humane life.

The worker should get whatever s/he earns -- no more. An amount equal to the value of the work done. Any more than this is leeching off others. If the worker wants more, then s/he must perform more value.

Value is determined by the law of supply and demand, not sentimental slogans about what is "decent" or "livable" etc. These emotional outburst phrases and subjective superstitions about "human value" should not be the basis for public policy any more than religious dogmas should determine public policy.

---

Here are some good links on the topic of the minimum wage and cheap labor:

Jim Blair and the Minimum Wage Anecdotes and arguments indicating that some workers are hurt by a minimum wage increase.

MinimumWage.com Gives facts and figures to prove that minimum wage laws do more harm than good (if you trust their facts and figures). However, a little common sense and the law of supply and demand is all an intelligent person needs to recognize that the state can only make people worse off by dictating the price of anything, including labor.

Economics Resource Center: Policy Debate: Does an increase in the minimum wage result in a higher unemployment rate? Another source which gives facts and figures ("studies"), mostly to try to prove that a higher minimum wage does not affect unemployment.

Many articles are given, taking one side or the other. But none of them address this question: If a small increase in the minimum wage has no negative effect, then why assume that a large increase would? Why not increase the minimum wage to $30 or $40 or $50 an hour? How can a family of six survive on only $10 or $12 an hour and save for their kids' college education, etc.? They obviously need at least $30/hour to have a truly decent standard of living -- it's only "fair".

"Studies" claiming that a minimum wage increase in South Succotash in a given year was not followed by an increase in unemployment do not prove anything. To prove that minimum wage has no negative effect on employment they must prove that the jobless rate would have been the same or higher if the minimum wage had not been increased. They don't make any such claim. They only claim that actual measured jobless rates did not change. This ignores all the other factors that also affect employment levels.

Trying to prove that forced higher wage levels have no effect on employment levels is in effect trying to prove that the law of supply and demand does not apply to wages, even though it does apply to everything else that is bought and sold in the marketplace. The "studies" trying to prove this do not ever explain why labor is the only thing bought and sold in the marketplace that violates the law of supply and demand.

It is not economics and empirical data, but politics and popularity polls and sentimentality that drives these "studies" claiming that minimum wage has no effect on employment levels. The researchers who do the "studies" will give the restless natives whatever findings are necessary in order to pacify them and will dig up the necessary "facts and figures" or "data" needed to produce the findings.

The burden of proof is on those claiming that the law of supply and demand is suddenly suspended when it is labor being bought and sold. If they cannot prove what the jobless rate would have been if the wage level had been different (e.g., had not increased) then they have proved nothing, and we must assume that the law of supply and demand does apply to labor as it does to everything else. (So if its price goes up, less of it is bought.)

Suppose they can show a pattern in some period where the employment level increased following an increase in the minimum wage. Does this prove that the higher wage did not have a negative effect on employment? No. The assumption has to be that if the wage had not increased, then the employment level would have increased more than it did. There are other factors which also can cause employment levels to go up or down, not just the wage level. But a higher wage level in itself, all else being equal, necessarily puts downward pressure on the employment level, i.e., reduces the amount of buying of labor.

"Sweatshops and Globalization" by Radley Balko -- Read about the fate of laid-off sweatshop workers in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Cambodia; see how anti-Globalist free-trade-bashers cause unintended consequences with their misguided crusade against sweatshops.

---

---