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Re:Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees by ttoinou on Tuesday October 02, 2018 @03:37PM (#18124989)

  you create a race to the bottom
But this is true for everything where you can apply supply and demand, and there's always a balance between the two.

  you end up with people willing to flip burgers or work a cash register for $2/hour
But what happens in your scenario where there is a minimum wage law ? Those people magically make 5 times more ?

Do you think you can force business to hire at any rate ? Or does the rate needs to follow productivity and current standard of living indexes ? What if your increase this rate by 100x, what happens ?

   But you'd end up absolutely tanking the median wage and standards of living
If the scenario where people don't work for 2 USD/hour they have 0 of salary. So the second scenario where they work for 2 USD / hour makes everyone more rich, I would be more inclined to believe the median wage would increase, but that's a hard question. The most important is that people worked and sustained themselves.
Re:Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees by Sohcahtoa82 on Tuesday October 02, 2018 @03:54PM (#18125131)
> But what happens in your scenario where there is a minimum wage law ? Those people magically make 5 times more ?

....yes? Considering that's what we have right now? You don't need to imagine this scenario. We're in it right now. In Oregon, the minimum wage is $10.75/hour.

> Do you think you can force business to hire at any rate ? [...] What if your increase this rate by 100x, what happens ?

Obviously not. I knew someone would try to make this argument, but I think its absurd.

> Or does the rate needs to follow productivity and current standard of living indexes ?

I'd make it follow a standard of living index. What the standard should be is up for debate, but I think at a minimum, someone working 40 hours a week should be able to live in a studio apartment on their own and buy food without government assistance. Two people working 40 hours a week each should be able to have a 2-bedroom apartment while raising a kid.

> If the scenario where people don't work for 2 USD/hour they have 0 of salary. So the second scenario where they work for 2 USD / hour makes everyone more rich, I would be more inclined to believe the median wage would increase

You're forgetting that the people formerly making minimum wage would either have their wage reduced to the hypothetical $2/hour or end up being replaced by a worker willing to work for $2/hour.

If you lower or remove minimum wage, every minimum wage job will have a reduction in the wage. When an employer pays minimum wage, they're implicitly saying "I'd pay you less, but the government won't let me."

> The most important is that people worked and sustained themselves.

Only by a technical definition of "sustained".

Re:Amazon raises minimum wage to $15 for all US employees by ttoinou on Wednesday October 03, 2018 @04:14AM (#18128426)

  ....yes? Considering that's what we have right now? 
So if you have a magic law that force businesses to pay 5 times the normal productivity for free, then you must have a law that force businesses to pay 5000 times the normal productivity ? There must be something wrong

   You're forgetting that the people 
Yes I agree but then we need to look at new prices for consumers goods and services that will be lower. I don't think talking about median wage is very meaningful without comparing what you can buy with it