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that is the dirty truth. All of those feel-good minimum wage laws are in fact stealing wages from those workers. Those workers were OK to work for those wages b

that is the dirty truth. All of those feel-good minimum wage laws are in fact stealing wages from those workers. Those workers were OK to work for those wages before the law. Now they have nothing. The result is now higher unemployment and use of tax-dollar to subsidize those people.

zthrowaway 3y ago
Yes. More people should take note that there's always unintended consequences with price controls. It usually makes things much worse. Reminds me of: https://www.lenconnect.com/story/opinion/columns/2013/09/23/thomas-sowell-minimum-wage-hike/44213594007/ https://www.lenconnect.com/story/opinion/columns/2013/09/23/...
add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
Or, since the overall demand for transportation hasn't changed, jobs shift over time to ones with less exploitative terms.
egh 3y ago
this is the traditional belief, but all the empirical research on this shows that it is not true. https://www.umass.edu/news/article/umass-amherst-economists-and-colleagues https://www.umass.edu/news/article/umass-amherst-economists-... https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/01/30/what-would-a-15-minimum-wage-mean-for-americas-economy https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/01/30/w...
- goostavos 3y ago
  _All_ of it? Damn. That's wild.
thrownaway13371 3y ago
Those workers often had no other choice other than to get exploited to scrape by, and now businesses who will refuse to pay a living wage have thrown them to the street. It's clearly economically viable for them to pay the bare minimum, but they will literally cease business than accept slightly lower profit margins.
kypro 3y ago
Yeah, to be clear – I obviously want people to be compensated well for their work, but the path to that isn't as easy as passing a law. And I wish that wasn't the case, but it is, and ultimately this is the consequence of pretending otherwise.
- usr1106 3y ago
  But having laws still works better than to just hope that no greedy businessmen would ever want to exoit workers.
olyjohn 3y ago
They are okay with it at first because they don't realize they're going to wear out their cars. Then when the car is in the shop for a week, and they can't work, they're not only paying for expensive repairs, but also not making any income at the same time. There is a reason the turnover is high with Uber and Lyft, and it's not because the pay is good.

zthrowaway 3y ago

Yes. More people should take note that there's always unintended consequences with price controls. It usually makes things much worse. Reminds me of: https://www.lenconnect.com/story/opinion/columns/2013/09/23/thomas-sowell-minimum-wage-hike/44213594007/ https://www.lenconnect.com/story/opinion/columns/2013/09/23/...

add-sub-mul-div 3y ago

Or, since the overall demand for transportation hasn't changed, jobs shift over time to ones with less exploitative terms.

egh 3y ago

this is the traditional belief, but all the empirical research on this shows that it is not true. https://www.umass.edu/news/article/umass-amherst-economists-and-colleagues https://www.umass.edu/news/article/umass-amherst-economists-... https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/01/30/what-would-a-15-minimum-wage-mean-for-americas-economy https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/01/30/w...

goostavos 3y ago
_All_ of it? Damn. That's wild.

thrownaway13371 3y ago

Those workers often had no other choice other than to get exploited to scrape by, and now businesses who will refuse to pay a living wage have thrown them to the street. It's clearly economically viable for them to pay the bare minimum, but they will literally cease business than accept slightly lower profit margins.

kypro 3y ago

Yeah, to be clear – I obviously want people to be compensated well for their work, but the path to that isn't as easy as passing a law. And I wish that wasn't the case, but it is, and ultimately this is the consequence of pretending otherwise.

usr1106 3y ago
But having laws still works better than to just hope that no greedy businessmen would ever want to exoit workers.

olyjohn 3y ago

They are okay with it at first because they don't realize they're going to wear out their cars. Then when the car is in the shop for a week, and they can't work, they're not only paying for expensive repairs, but also not making any income at the same time. There is a reason the turnover is high with Uber and Lyft, and it's not because the pay is good.