It’s illogical to think you can fix both sides of an economic equation. As the article points out, “If it is possible to mandate high wages, then why not also have low prices for food, shelter, clothing, and everything else that is good?”

Instead of helping the poor at the expense of the rich, you end up hurting the poor with fewer jobs or more expensive products. The high cost of meeting government regulations such as the minimum wage is one reason why companies move jobs off-shore or move their entire business off-shore to countries with greater economic freedom.

Speaking of freedom, this is a basic principle I think well-meaning people too often overlook. If one person has a need for labor and another the availability, shouldn’t they be free to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement without government interference? Do you really think people are so incompetent that government bureaucrats, at the expense of the economy, must second-guess even the most basic of economic decisions?

It’s easy to get sucked into public policy that is fundamentally flawed unless we understand and apply basic principles such as freedom.

However… well, I’ll refer you back to Pete’s post on subsidising businesses with tax money so their employees don’t starve to death.

utahgirl

However, this factual analysis has not caused Republican leaders in Utah or the national GOP to stop quoting their myth that raising the minimum wage will cause job losses. Just ask Sen. Beverly Evans of Vernal…

1. As a small business owner in a rural southern Utah town, I do the best I can for my staff, including providing health benefits. But last year, our non-profit health insurance provider raised our premium by 27%, even though we are in the lowest use teir possible. I promise you, our company’s net profits don’t grow by 27% in an average year! Unable to keep up with this “routine” premium increase, we were forced to dilute our health coverage and accept a much higher deductible.

The point is, if we want businesses to provide health insurance, we need to provide affordable options. Let’s not blame small businesses for a broken health care system!

2. Years ago I read a letter to the editor of the Utne Reader that struck me as brilliant: Let’s tie the minimum wage to Congressional salary, say as a ratio or percentage. If Congress deserves a salary increase every year, doesn’t the frontline worker? It’s appalling to me that these elected representative, who are virtually all millionairs anyway, are so arrogant as to stroke themselves with an annual raise while refusing to provide a living wage to to the poorest Americans. Shame on them! And kudos to Rep. Matheson for decrying this travesty.

If bad behavior by an individual that negatively affects others is enforced by laws, then bad behavior of a company shouldn’t be exempt. Give me another solution other than the minimum wage and I’ll be all ears. Otherwise, I see no other method of enforcing responsibility upon the irresponsible. Conservativism is founded upon the principle of “personal responsibility”. Does financial pillaging not qualify as such?

One only has to look at America pre-minimum wage to get a picture of the exercised responsibility of the “free market”. Anyone for sweat shops and child labor?

The #1 reason that wages are low in this country is the endless supply of cheap labor that flows across the border every day from Mexico. If our government would actually enforce immigration laws and stop the endless flow of illegal immigrants, there would be more wage pressure at the lower end of the wage spectrum, and wages would rise. Fewer people seeking the same number of jobs… it is simple supply and demand–and basic economics.

Guaranteeing people a “living wage” is basically Socialism. Planned or “legislated” wages discourage entrepreneurship. One of the main reasons why I went into business for myself at such a young as was because I saw plainly that it would be easier for me to make the wage or income that I wanted on my own rather than working for “the man” for the rest of my life. And I was right. Had someone guaranteed me a certain income–whatever that might have been–I might have chosen to just punch a time card like most other people. But I had the FREEDOM (and that’s the key word here) to either take the jobs that were available to me–at the wage offered–or NOT. That’s why it is called a “free market economy”. No one is forced to accept any wage. If the wage they earn at the job they work at is not enough to support the lifestyle they want, they can seek another job with a better wage, seek training or education to improve their marketability and increase the number of jobs (and wages) that they qualify for, they can steal, they can sell drugs, they can choose not to work and collect unemployment, etc.

A minimum wage has no place in a free market system. It is no different than farm subsidies–guaranteeing a farmer that he will get a certain price for his milk or his corn or his beef.

Shut off the valve of cheap labor and you will see the minimum wage increase on it’s own…

As far as detrimental effects of minimum wage go, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to say that wages that result in someone being on government assistance do nobody any good.

And Doran is right to say that market forces tend to push wages torward livable, in my time of job searching I’ve found one minimum wage job available (which I did not apply for because of working conditions, rather than pay), and outside of fast food jobs (which I did apply for, I’m getting desperate), nothing under 8 dollars an hour.

http://www.alternatives.org/livingwage2005chart.html