3 ms·
National minimum wage is stupid. Even state minimum wage is a bit silly. There is way too much variance from one location to another. MIT created a “living wag
by cwhiz 6y ago
National minimum wage is stupid. Even state minimum wage is a bit silly. There is way too much variance from one location to another.
MIT created a “living wage” calculator that tries to estimate what the minimum livable wage should be in a given city.[0] Some extreme variance from state to state and city to city. There is no reason to do this federally. States and cities should handle minimum wage.
[0]: https://livingwage.mit.edu/ https://livingwage.mit.edu/
- reducesuffering 6y agoWhy shouldn't the federal government implement the min. wage as min(cities & states) so that any bad actors of states & cities that don't follow the "living wage" calculator are accounted for? Isn't this what the federal government currently tries to do?
- cwhiz 6y agoIt’s not the business of the federal government to dictate to each state what their minimum wage should be. States are free to make their own decisions on minimum wage. Citizens within those states can vote to change it, and if they don’t like it, they can leave to another state.
- reducesuffering 6y agoDo you agree with free markets and globalization dictating unskilled labor's wages in the same way? Your suggestion is a miniature version of that. If one state sets no min. wage, most factories will be based in this state, and much of unskilled labor will be forced to move to this state as the other states won't be competitive because of the higher cost of labor. Isn't this similar to the US' predicament with regards to global labor (like Chinese and Indian factories) being much cheaper, thus many US made products aren't competitive on price?