4 ms·

Minimum wage, despite all manner of contortion by those that seek to justify its existence, is a political concept. The minimum wage is, always, zero. Minimum

Minimum wage, despite all manner of contortion by those that seek to justify its existence, is a political concept. The minimum wage is, always, zero. Minimum wage is also what drives the market for illegal immigrant labor. As Milton Friedman pointed out decades ago, immigration is most beneficial to employers precisely when it's illegal. Those workers don't enjoy the protections, wagers, and respect their legal counterparts enjoy. If illegal immigrants are made legal, then the benefit of employing an illegal plummets. These wages also avoid other form of government oversight, such as taxation. Lack of immigration enforcement and lack of penalties for those that hire illegals provides an unfair advantage to those employers who, brazenly, break the law. They get cheaper labor, avoid taxes, and gain an unfair market advantage over those employers who follow the law. There's nothing "free" about a market whose government selectively enforces its laws. Consenting adults should be able to work for whatever wage they like.

jandrese 6y ago
I'm not sure how your first three paragraphs support the fourth. Illegal immigration drives down wages so we shouldn't have a minimum wage?
- trentnix 6y ago
  Illegal immigration is a side effect of minimum wage. And minimum wage puts unskilled Americans (or Americans whose skills aren't valuable because of a changing market) at an unfair disadvantage in their attempts to obtain employment and acquire new skills. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my post.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    So why not provide a legal path to immigration instead of abolishing the minimum wage then?
    - trentnix 6y ago
      Illegal immigration and immigration in general is its own rabbit hole. You shouldn't assume from my post whether I'm for or against illegal immigration (or any type of immigration) because it doesn't really matter one way or the other to the points I'm trying to make. Economically speaking, granting legal status to unskilled illegals results in a combination of undesirable side effects: - it increases the price of the goods they produced reducing the buying power of the minimum wage, - it prices many of those illegals out of the market because they are unable to produce value for the wage they are paid (but now they are eligible for government benefits), - and it encourages new types of "black market" employment. Try all you like, but you won't outsmart the market.
      - jandrese 6y ago
        This is where you lose me. The jobs still need to be done. Some companies might just fold up and die, but most would be just as happy passing on the higher costs to customers, and said good or service still needs to be produced so the companies that survive will take over for the ones that folded. Economists have this weird idea that all fast food would close because the people working there clearly aren't worth $15/hour because they're doing jobs that currently pay only $10/hour. The crazy part is that higher minimum wages tend to increase the market, not decrease it. Turns out that poor people are bottlenecked on money. If you reduce the bottleneck they can spend more, which increases demand for labor (to fill the supply) which increases the labor rate. You can see this effect all throughout history, the more wealth gap an economy has the slower its economic growth rate is. The super rich can't spend the money fast enough or broadly enough to increase the economic base, the economies grow stagnant.
        imtringued 6y ago
        The customers of McDonalds are other poor people. The margins are already slim. If you raise prices to cover the minimum wage those poor customers won't eat at McDonalds.
        6y ago
ativzzz 6y ago
> lack of penalties for those that hire illegals provides an unfair advantage to those employers who, brazenly, break the law I've thought for a long time that the easiest way to curb illegal immigration would be to re-allocate resources targeting illegal immigrants to much more aggresively fine/jail/punish employers who employ illegal immigrants instead. As long as there is a supply of (illegal) jobs willing to pay more than in the country they are emigrating from, the immigrants will come. If there is nobody willing to hire them, they will not come. This will not happen though because it is in nobody's best interests. Not for business in the US, because they will make less money (or possibly even be unprofitable and have to shut down), and not for consumers, because their prices will increase.

jandrese 6y ago

I'm not sure how your first three paragraphs support the fourth. Illegal immigration drives down wages so we shouldn't have a minimum wage?

trentnix 6y ago
Illegal immigration is a side effect of minimum wage. And minimum wage puts unskilled Americans (or Americans whose skills aren't valuable because of a changing market) at an unfair disadvantage in their attempts to obtain employment and acquire new skills. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my post.
- jandrese 6y ago
  So why not provide a legal path to immigration instead of abolishing the minimum wage then?
  - trentnix 6y ago
    Illegal immigration and immigration in general is its own rabbit hole. You shouldn't assume from my post whether I'm for or against illegal immigration (or any type of immigration) because it doesn't really matter one way or the other to the points I'm trying to make. Economically speaking, granting legal status to unskilled illegals results in a combination of undesirable side effects: - it increases the price of the goods they produced reducing the buying power of the minimum wage, - it prices many of those illegals out of the market because they are unable to produce value for the wage they are paid (but now they are eligible for government benefits), - and it encourages new types of "black market" employment. Try all you like, but you won't outsmart the market.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      This is where you lose me. The jobs still need to be done. Some companies might just fold up and die, but most would be just as happy passing on the higher costs to customers, and said good or service still needs to be produced so the companies that survive will take over for the ones that folded. Economists have this weird idea that all fast food would close because the people working there clearly aren't worth $15/hour because they're doing jobs that currently pay only $10/hour. The crazy part is that higher minimum wages tend to increase the market, not decrease it. Turns out that poor people are bottlenecked on money. If you reduce the bottleneck they can spend more, which increases demand for labor (to fill the supply) which increases the labor rate. You can see this effect all throughout history, the more wealth gap an economy has the slower its economic growth rate is. The super rich can't spend the money fast enough or broadly enough to increase the economic base, the economies grow stagnant.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        The customers of McDonalds are other poor people. The margins are already slim. If you raise prices to cover the minimum wage those poor customers won't eat at McDonalds.
        6y ago

ativzzz 6y ago

> lack of penalties for those that hire illegals provides an unfair advantage to those employers who, brazenly, break the law I've thought for a long time that the easiest way to curb illegal immigration would be to re-allocate resources targeting illegal immigrants to much more aggresively fine/jail/punish employers who employ illegal immigrants instead. As long as there is a supply of (illegal) jobs willing to pay more than in the country they are emigrating from, the immigrants will come. If there is nobody willing to hire them, they will not come. This will not happen though because it is in nobody's best interests. Not for business in the US, because they will make less money (or possibly even be unprofitable and have to shut down), and not for consumers, because their prices will increase.