Re:A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage
by pessimizer on Monday April 04, 2016 @04:02PM
(#11425037)
> I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal
I don't think we do. Employment is not a good in and of itself, and a person who is working is not necessarily in a better position than a person who is not. People working for a wage that doesn't support their needs (which then has to be subsidized by the government) are just vehicles for transfer payments from government to garbage business.
> because there are huge benefits to being productively employed.
To make your assumptions explicit here, if you value employment for employment's sake, anything that maximizes the number of people employed is good. Why not negative wages? I suppose a full time job that pays less than it takes to feed and house a person and has to be supplemented with welfare in order to do so is a sort of negative wage...
I don't think we do. Employment is not a good in and of itself, and a person who is working is not necessarily in a better position than a person who is not. People working for a wage that doesn't support their needs (which then has to be subsidized by the government) are just vehicles for transfer payments from government to garbage business.
> because there are huge benefits to being productively employed.
To make your assumptions explicit here, if you value employment for employment's sake, anything that maximizes the number of people employed is good. Why not negative wages? I suppose a full time job that pays less than it takes to feed and house a person and has to be supplemented with welfare in order to do so is a sort of negative wage...