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yes it's Cato, yes it's from the Clinton era, but it still is a decent read.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg18n1c.html

iBubba wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

iBubba wrote:

macnuke, what of those intellectually incapable or physically unable to attain your stratosphere of financial success? There are those who - due to social stratifications and/or lack of opportunities who simply - no matter how hard they are willing to try - can "make it."

Just because people don't have the "tools" necessary to make it as a big shot [fill in the blank], does NOT mean they are leeches and they are no less entitled to earn - at the very LEAST - a living wage.



BTW - you're freaking hot when you talk all "open market and stuff."

How do you separate those people we all want to help and the lazy bums that just want to get by?
Where is the incentive/necessity to want to better yourself?

Apparently, the neo-cons have a multitude of ways of identifying the shiftless, after all cutting Social Programs is the order of the day on the hill. How about you propose something? I, for the most part, haven't taken issue with Welfare on the whole.

I have already stated my agreement with targeted assistance v a blanket min wage hike. This would actually be increasing welfare. That alone won't stop 'abuse' from shiftless types but at least we won't be compounding the problem. It's also a much better way to go about the oft stated desire for people to earn a living wage.
In my opinion this debate is being sidetracked.

If legislated wage policy can be used to manipulate workers for a common good, why not wage policy to manipulate employers for a common good?

isaly wrote:

charon wrote:

Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525 (1923)

They exist, I think we just tend not to see them.  That, and I'm sure a lot of workers, like the rest of the population, honestly believe that there's no connection between the minimum wage and unemployment.

Interesting, Charon, you don't mention that this case was heard in 1923.

To the contrary, you can see that I did.

isaly wrote:

You're willing to make life harder for other people in exchange for a nice subsidy from the people who want to hire your kind to justify paying other people less.

What in the blazes are you talking about?  "My kind"?  First of all, stop acting like you know anything significant about who I am, or who I'll work for or why I believe what I do.  It's rude, bigoted, and an intellectually lazy substitute for actually dealing with an argument.  Second, you're not making any sense.  I don't personally, directly gain anything by replacing the minimum wage with a government subsidy for low-wage workers; to the contrary, I don't personally hire low wage workers but I would have to pay this subsidy out of my own tax dollars.

So what's your substantive argument?  The only difference between a government subsidy for low-wage workers and the minimum wage is that the latter is effectively a tax that's borne only by employers, instead of a broader swath of the taxpaying public.  How does a switch make workers worse off, even though it encourages the employment of low-skilled workers?  I really don't understand why it's so devious or injurious to change the mechanism for supplementing low-wage workers' income.

isaly wrote:

You're not "penalizing employers for hiring unskilled people". You're saying "this is the minimum that we deem it acceptable to pay anyone at all, regardless of skill level." they are not even close in terms of congruence and don't even try to qualify it by saying 'well, in effect cause the end result's the same'

Welcome to the world of unintended consequences, where the truth is that, in effect, the end result's the same, no matter how noble the purpose.  The minimum wage is effectively a tax on employers, of varying degree, for every low-wage worker they hire.  Employers being the profit-seekers that they are, they'll be less willing/able to hire those workers, so in that sense it backfires.  And it's unfair in the sense that it burdens employers as if workers were their wards.  Welfare-type programs at least make more sense in that they treat care for the poor as a broader social responsibility.

Last edited by charon (2005-11-24 8:40 pm)

Tallgeese wrote:

Raise minimum wage and working will be more attractive.

But harder to obtain.  Since there is not, as far as I know, a shortage of low-skilled labor, I doubt raising the minimum wage will reduce welfare rolls.  Most likely the opposite.

Last edited by charon (2005-11-24 12:04 pm)