No, I don't think maximizing employment is a goal in and of itself. It would be better to not employ humans below a certain marginal productivity. Instead, th

No, I don't think maximizing employment is a goal in and of itself. It would be better to not employ humans below a certain marginal productivity. Instead, those people need to focus on training/education to enhance their marginal productivity. And employers should focus on automating those low productivity tasks. I'm not going to consider the case of people with disabilities - that's fine to have an exception for them. But that's not really what's being discussed in these debates. I actually think the market wage is socially inefficient because it encourages people to take the short term gain of immediate cash over the long term investment of training/education. It also encourages employers to forego efficiency-enhancing improvements. Now if humans were rational, 100% responsible, and conscientious, then they would forego low wages, focus on training to achieve higher levels of productivity and enhance the economy by doing so. Instead, there are many people who either through their own lack of judgment or unfortunate circumstances do not seek to optimize their marginal productivity of labor. That's a market failure and minimum wage is one attempt to solve it.