I have survived my second annual thinning of the herd

[Hauldren Collider]

Yep, and you have a wife and three childrens to support ?

If I did, I'd have a lot more trouble supporting them at $0 an hour.

[KrazyHorse]

Nonsense. By raising the minimum wage above the slacker reserve level you get more people into the employment market, build their social network, and most importantly keep them there.

Is this supposed to be a response, you twit?

[Dinner]

I got paid $9.50, and now you're on the list as well. This thread is a real jackpot!

[KrazyHorse]

1) Minimum wages don't help anyone who makes more than the minimum wage (i.e. the vast majority of workers!). The policy is not one of prosperity; the purpose is to make some very poor people a little bit less poor.

2) Minimum wages do help the people who are employed at the minimum wage - presumably they would earn slightly less if it were repealed. Okay, it is helping some poor people.

3) Minimum wages actively hurt anyone who would be employed but for the minimum wage - these people are even poorer than the group in (2)! So helping some poor people comes at least partially at the expense of even poorer people.

4) If, to alleviate the problem in (3), you make exceptions to the minimum wage for people who commonly fall in that group, then you have effectively repealed the minimum wage.

Kuci, you should remember that minimum wage also transfers something from consumers of the labor of those at minimum wage to those providing that labor. So while it always hurts the worst-off in society (violating the Rawlsian metric) it may actually decrease other metrics of inequality (e.g. GIni coefficient)

[BlackCat]

So demand curves do not slope down? Do you enjoy inhabiting this fantasy world?

No, I live in the real world while you apparently live in some fantasy world where companies can't afford minimum wages

[Kuciwalker]

Kuci, you should remember that minimum wage also transfers something from consumers of the labor of those at minimum wage to those providing that labor. So while it always hurts the worst-off in society (violating the Rawlsian metric) it may actually decrease other metrics of inequality (e.g. GIni coefficient)

Yes, that's why I said "at least partially".

[Dinner]

It's $7.25 now. It was $5.15 back when I was a minimum wage earner.

It was $4.25 when I was a pimply faced 15.5 year old working at the checkout counter at K-Mart. I was very happy to get a $0.12 per hour raise after six months.

[Hauldren Collider]

No, I live in the real world while you apparently live in some fantasy world where companies can't afford minimum wages

Okay, BlackCat, you're stupid. Companies can afford minimum wages, just like you can afford to pay an extra 100 dollars for a car. But you can't buy as much now that you've spent that extra 100 bucks, can you? THERE'S AN OPPORTUNITY COST.

[DaShi]

3) Minimum wages actively hurt anyone who would be employed but for the minimum wage - these people are even poorer than the group in (2)! So helping some poor people comes at least partially at the expense of even poorer people.

No sure if this is entirely a bad thing. I'd rather their be fewer people working than everyone having a job but not making enough to live on. I guess, ideally, we need a system where helping the poor comes at the expense of the rich.

[Kuciwalker]

edit: this is a postscript to #271, not a response to any individual psot

If we could achieve perfect price discrimination of low-value labor through legislative fiat, that might be strongly welfare-enhancing (I'd worry about the effect on investment incentives). As long as exceptions to the minimum wage don't reach that standard, they should only be welfare-enhancing in rough proportion to the size of the population being excepted.

[Hauldren Collider]

No sure if this is entirely a bad thing. I'd rather their be fewer people working than everyone having a job but not making enough to live on. I guess, ideally, we need a system where helping the poor comes at the expense of the rich.

Why don't we just end starvation by nuking the congo? Follows the same awful logic.

[Kuciwalker]

Why don't we just end starvation by nuking the congo? Follows the same awful logic.

Uh, no?

[Kuciwalker]

The correct answer to DaShi is some sort of guaranteed minimum income.

[DaShi]

The environmental effects would be devastating.

[Hauldren Collider]

Uh, no?

I'd rather have fewer people eating than everyone having food but not enough to live on. I guess, ideally, we need a system where helping the hungry comes at the expense of the fat.