Re:What harm do minimum wages do?
by dragonwriter on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @04:06PM
(#24215597)
> Rate that allows the employee to live without government assistance like food stamps and Medicaid. Otherwise the government is just subsidizing the company.
No, the government is subsidizing the worker, and in a system of means-tested aid doing so less than it would be without the job.
If you can't employ people at wages that don't get them fully off public aid, then people can't get the jobs that let them build the skills to be employable at decent wages. Your plan is a recipe for (1) killing businesses and tax revenue that support public assistance, and (2) killing people's ability to move up and off of public assistance, so that for any given minimum standard of living we’ll need more public funds to reach it but have less available.
It's much better to tax capital returns and use the proceeds to support the un- and under-employed (whether permanent or transitional) then it is to block the onramps to people becoming employable at wages that are livable.
And that's even ignoring that Medicaid and other public assistance usually aren't based solely on individual income but household circumstance, so that the required minimum wage by that standard would be dependent on household circumstances, which is problematic.
No, the government is subsidizing the worker, and in a system of means-tested aid doing so less than it would be without the job.
If you can't employ people at wages that don't get them fully off public aid, then people can't get the jobs that let them build the skills to be employable at decent wages. Your plan is a recipe for (1) killing businesses and tax revenue that support public assistance, and (2) killing people's ability to move up and off of public assistance, so that for any given minimum standard of living we’ll need more public funds to reach it but have less available.
It's much better to tax capital returns and use the proceeds to support the un- and under-employed (whether permanent or transitional) then it is to block the onramps to people becoming employable at wages that are livable.
And that's even ignoring that Medicaid and other public assistance usually aren't based solely on individual income but household circumstance, so that the required minimum wage by that standard would be dependent on household circumstances, which is problematic.