4 ms·
>Force companies to pay a living wage. Who determines what a "living wage" is? Does it include having cable? Internet? A car? But beyond that, why do you want
by markshead 14y ago
>Force companies to pay a living wage.
Who determines what a "living wage" is? Does it include having cable? Internet? A car?
But beyond that, why do you want to put up any barriers to what jobs companies can hire workers for? Lets say you own a company that employees 20 people and it sits on one acre of land. You need to get someone to mow the grass. You can hire company to come in for $80 per week to mow for you. They have big expensive lawnmowers and can do it very quickly. Or you can hire Joe to mow it using an older push mower you have. Joe isn't super fast and it will take him 10 hours. So you decide the value is $8 per hour in order to be on par with the company that will do it.
I wouldn't want the government to come in and make laws that make it better for you to hire the big company than Joe. I wouldn't want them to make it harder for you to justify taking a chance on hiring Joe and giving him a shot at a job just because someone doesn't think that $8 per hour is a living wage.
If Joe works for you for a year and has good track record, who knows. Maybe he will prove dependable enough that you can find other things for him to do. Maybe some of those things will be worth paying him more. Or maybe he can get a higher paying job working for the big lawn-mowing company based on his track record with you.
- chii 14y agoThe situation is more complex that that, because the mowing company uses a great big machine, and they constantly try to improve it. Say it now only takes $40 to mow instead of $80 due to efficiency increases and whatnots. Do you now fire joe and hire the mowing company? or do you instead choose to pay hin $4 an hour? Ovbiously joe can't increase his speed of mowing beyond a certain limit - he is human after all. The real underlying question is - if the value that joe provides can be instead provided via a cheaper source, then the business _should_ use that cheaper source, joe's life shouldnt and won't come into consideration. This method of thinking seems incompatible with the concepts of compassion and empathy, but it seems this is the way the real world works...