4 ms·

>Who am I to tell a homeless person that she is legally forbidden to engage in a voluntary, hourly employment contract for less than $15/hr? Someone who hasn't

by Joe-Z 9y ago

>Who am I to tell a homeless person that she is legally forbidden to engage in a voluntary, hourly employment contract for less than $15/hr? Someone who hasn't unterstood minimun wage fully? Minimum wage covers exactly this situation: You will have to pay at least that amount, even if the person you're employing happens to be homeless at the moment. If an employer is not willing to pay that, than that's not an issue with having a minimum wage...

Aron 9y ago
If someone says 'my labor isn't worth 15$ and I know you won't hire me at that rate so I want to work for 10$' they are legally forbidden from this, right?
- Joe-Z 9y ago
  >If someone says 'my labor isn't worth 15$ But that's what I think is good about it!: It sets a baseline for what human labour is worth. Nobody has to say how much (or rather how little) his or her labour is worth. If an employer thinks someone should earn less than that - fully knowing that this wage will never enable this other person to get on in life - than she'd rather not employ anyone.
tim333 9y ago
The trouble is for $15 per hour the business can probably hire someone more productive or less hassle than the homeless guy. Thus the homeless guy stays unemployed. I was always a put off minimum wage laws by reading Thomas Sowell on how blacks had lower unemployment than whites in 1948 before minimum wage laws had much effect. After people hired non blacks and the unemployment rate shot up giving problems that continue to this day. ( eg http://www.twincities.com/2012/02/07/thomas-sowell-the-minimum-wage-a-disaster-for-young-and-poor-black-people/ http://www.twincities.com/2012/02/07/thomas-sowell-the-minim...)
- Joe-Z 9y ago
  Thank you for your example, that's interesting! I guess the story can also be interpreted the other way around: Employers were only willing to hire black people because they were worked for lower wages, because they exactly knew that their labour was being considered less worth that that of white people? So introducing the minimum wage just made the racism obivous and I'm sure problems would also have arisen if the minimum wage had never been introduced and the black minority would have been forced to slave away on minimal incomes their whole life.
  - tim333 9y ago
    Sowell's argument was that different groups can have different productivity including say the average black at the time being less educated etc which he can get away with saying as he's black himself.
ancap 9y ago
It absolutely is a problem with the minimum wage. Chances are a homeless person's marginal productivity is less than $15/hour. Why would an employer hire someone that's going to be a net loss on their bottom line? Sadly this is not just a consequence for the homeless but it impacts all those who are low skilled, which is disproportionally the young and minorities.

by Joe-Z 9y ago

Aron 9y ago

If someone says 'my labor isn't worth 15$ and I know you won't hire me at that rate so I want to work for 10$' they are legally forbidden from this, right?

Joe-Z 9y ago
>If someone says 'my labor isn't worth 15$ But that's what I think is good about it!: It sets a baseline for what human labour is worth. Nobody has to say how much (or rather how little) his or her labour is worth. If an employer thinks someone should earn less than that - fully knowing that this wage will never enable this other person to get on in life - than she'd rather not employ anyone.

tim333 9y ago

The trouble is for $15 per hour the business can probably hire someone more productive or less hassle than the homeless guy. Thus the homeless guy stays unemployed. I was always a put off minimum wage laws by reading Thomas Sowell on how blacks had lower unemployment than whites in 1948 before minimum wage laws had much effect. After people hired non blacks and the unemployment rate shot up giving problems that continue to this day. ( eg http://www.twincities.com/2012/02/07/thomas-sowell-the-minimum-wage-a-disaster-for-young-and-poor-black-people/ http://www.twincities.com/2012/02/07/thomas-sowell-the-minim...)

Joe-Z 9y ago
Thank you for your example, that's interesting! I guess the story can also be interpreted the other way around: Employers were only willing to hire black people because they were worked for lower wages, because they exactly knew that their labour was being considered less worth that that of white people? So introducing the minimum wage just made the racism obivous and I'm sure problems would also have arisen if the minimum wage had never been introduced and the black minority would have been forced to slave away on minimal incomes their whole life.
- tim333 9y ago
  Sowell's argument was that different groups can have different productivity including say the average black at the time being less educated etc which he can get away with saying as he's black himself.

ancap 9y ago

It absolutely is a problem with the minimum wage. Chances are a homeless person's marginal productivity is less than $15/hour. Why would an employer hire someone that's going to be a net loss on their bottom line? Sadly this is not just a consequence for the homeless but it impacts all those who are low skilled, which is disproportionally the young and minorities.