It was very interesting to look at these maps [h/t] of how well you can raise a family or a single person on minimum wage. Looking at the second to last map, it’s nice to see that Washington’s wage is enough to let, at least some people in some circumstances, make a living.
That’s obviously the cheapest parts of the state. Even there, the state’s minimum wage isn’t enough to raise a family. So a push for a higher statewide wage seems pretty reasonable.
And here in the most expensive parts of the state it’s even more needed. Hopefully the Seattle and SeaTac minimum wages will have some relief here in King County. But it really should be statewide.
Minimum wage is a complicated issue. Conservatives, who see everything simplistically, argue it interferes with markets (bad) and destroys jobs (bad), especially entry-level jobs for unskilled kids just starting out (bad).
Of course, it’s not that simple, not least because millions of our economy’s adult jobs pay minimum wage, and many families have to live on wages from such jobs.
But despite those realities, conservatives see nothing good in minimum wage laws. For example, they don’t recognize the benefit of an adequate minimum wage in terms of reducing welfare expenditures, because they also oppose paying taxes for the welfare programs that make up the difference between sub-living wages and low-wage workers’ subsistence needs. (They apparently believe workers who can’t persuade their employers to pay subsistence wages should starve, not unlike Hitler’s and Stalin’s social programs.)
We liberals see one of government’s purposes as protecting the weak from the strong. Thus, our main rationale for supporting minimum wage laws is to compensate for the unlevel playing field between powerful employers and powerless workers at the bottom rungs of the labor pool. We’re also driven by basic compassion, of the sort Christians claim to idealize (but those claiming to be Christians rarely if ever put into practice); it bothers us to see people, especially those who work hard, go hungry simply because we live under a system based on inequality.
There’s actually a common ground on which liberals and conservatives could come together in support of a minimum wage sufficient to satisfy workers’ subsistence needs: As a way to reduce government expenditures, and therefore taxes, that go to supporting the afore-mentioned welfare programs. It’s just not realistic that we as a society will allow people, especially those who work hard, go hungry or starve. When the minimum wage is so low that taxpayers have to provide half the subsistence needs of those workers, which is what we have now, welfare is actually a subsidy to employers. Market distortion, a favorite bogeyman of conservatives, also kicks in here, because subsidizing labor costs with taxpayer money results in misallocating resources.
If employers had to pay for the true costs of labor, which at minimum is what it costs a worker to live, get to a job, and furnish his labor, they might — as Bickle argues — replace some workers with machines (or, as he calls them, “robots,” a particular type of machine). Bickle approaches this argument as if that’s a bad thing, but what’s good about perpetuating an inefficient method of production? In theory, human labor will always be cheaper than mechanization if human labor is free, but that doesn’t mean the economy is more productive if we don’t replace slaves with tractors and harvesters. Some human labor, perhaps much or all human labor, SHOULD be replaced by machines. For example, if radiologists can be replaced by computers that read and interpret x-rays faster, cheaper, and more accurately, how much sense does it make to continue training and paying radiologists?
People with longer-range vision understand the real issue is not what the minimum wage will be tomorrow or next year, but how we’re going to support our human population when human workers have become superfluous, entirely replaced by machines, and no longer have a role in the economy. When work becomes obsolete, how will people who don’t own capital live? That’s a problem that will demand a solution, and it’s inconceivable that government won’t have a role in formulating and implementing the solution; that’s not a problem that free markets alone can solve. In fact, it will be the ultimate market failure, and without government intervention, will lead to the penultimate economic depression of all human history — the kind of depression that triggers the violent overthrow of established orders, which is the outcome that capitalists fear most.
So, the question is not whether we should raise the minimum wage, but by how much. I’m for raising it enough so everyone can support himself or herself with work, and doesn’t have to work more than 40 hours a week to do it. That wouldn’t have a major effect on taxes or deficits, because welfare is a pretty small part of the overall budget, but it would help — if lowering taxes and/or deficits is a goal of yours. It also would reinforce free-market principles by getting government out of the business of subsidizing employers’ labor costs and forcing businesses to price their products according to the true costs of production. So why won’t conservatives support this? Because they’re stupid, I guess.
Of course, you don’t have to wait for recalcitrant Republican legislators to raise the minimum wage to the subsistence level, which means waiting until kingdom come. You can implement your own personal minimum wage. If a Walmart manager in Arizona tells you, “I’ll pay you $7.25 an hour, provided you work an extra hour a day off the clock,” you can reply, “Sorry, but I need $12 an hour,” and walk out of the job interview. That’s what I would do, and if enough people do that, the manager will have no choice but to report to the company that he can’t hire workers for less than $12 an hour, and unless the company budgets its labor expenses accordingly, the store will have to close for lack of employees. It’s like going on strike without a union, but better, because you don’t have to pay union dues and how will they bust the union when there isn’t one? It’s just a matter of everyone agreeing to do the same thing, i.e., demanding that employers pay living wages, and walking away if they don’t. Nobody, no matter how desperate they are, needs a job that doesn’t pay anything. The only job worth having is one that provides a livelihood. Working for free doesn’t get you anything.
Who,protects the weak (and the strong) from the government?
@4 Why do we need to be protected from our own government? This is America, not Russia, China, or North Korea.