Was doing some reading this evening and came accross some interesting articles on minimum wage. Never really gave it much thought but here are some snippets from what Ive read:
(quoted from elsewhere)
"When an employer hires a worker, it is because he anticipates that the worker will produce a value that exceeds what he is paying him. For example, if a worker is hired at $5 an hour, the employer anticipates that the worker will contribute a value to the business of, say, $6 an hour. That?s why he hires him.
But what happens if an employer believes that a worker, because of inadequate work experience for example, will produce only $4 in value? Obviously, he won?t hire him if the law requires him to pay $5 because, in his mind, he?ll be losing $1 an hour.
Thus, the law does nothing to help people whose labor is valued by employers at less than the legally established minimum wage. On the contrary, the law actually attacks those prospective workers by denying them the opportunity to work at the lower wage. By locking them out of the labor market, the minimum-wage law prevents those people from grasping the first rung of the economic ladder, where they could gain work skills and learn work ethics that would enable them to keep climbing up the ladder. Consigned to permanent unemployment by the minimum-wage law, those prospective workers are then relegated to government welfare, where the state takes care of them . and, of course, controls them in the name of helping them.
Minimum-wage laws have no place in a free society. Freedom entails the right of people to enter into mutually beneficial exchanges with one another which provide them with the opportunity to improve their economic well-being. Greenspan has it right. It?s time for Americans to recapture their heritage of economic liberty, and a good way to begin is by repealing the minimum wage, a relic of the bankrupt economic philosophy of state control over economic activity. "
and alan greenspan says it best:
"On the issue of the minimum wage, I still hold to what I said previously. I never argued nor would I that in a period of forced draft pressures in the labor market, which is indeed what we have been seeing recently, that you'll find any result from the minimum wage on the issue of employment. Indeed, I think that it is very unlikely when these labor markets are as tight as they are that the minimum wage has a significant effect in preventing people from coming on the lower ends of the economic ladder to get a job.
My concern is when the labor markets begin to weaken that those people who cannot ? are not allowed by law to accept a wage beneath a certain number, can find no job. As a consequence, they do not get on the first rung of the ladder, cannot achieve job skills, cannot achieve the self- esteem that is necessary to move up the ladder, and I do not perceive that the minimum wage is something which is a benevolent force for people in the lower part of our income groups. I frankly think that it is something which deprives them of gaining what they should be obtaining by right, and I do not consider the minimum wage as a positive force in our society. I think it is precisely counterproductive to what you suggest it is trying to do."
something to think about.
(quoted from elsewhere)
"When an employer hires a worker, it is because he anticipates that the worker will produce a value that exceeds what he is paying him. For example, if a worker is hired at $5 an hour, the employer anticipates that the worker will contribute a value to the business of, say, $6 an hour. That?s why he hires him.
But what happens if an employer believes that a worker, because of inadequate work experience for example, will produce only $4 in value? Obviously, he won?t hire him if the law requires him to pay $5 because, in his mind, he?ll be losing $1 an hour.
Thus, the law does nothing to help people whose labor is valued by employers at less than the legally established minimum wage. On the contrary, the law actually attacks those prospective workers by denying them the opportunity to work at the lower wage. By locking them out of the labor market, the minimum-wage law prevents those people from grasping the first rung of the economic ladder, where they could gain work skills and learn work ethics that would enable them to keep climbing up the ladder. Consigned to permanent unemployment by the minimum-wage law, those prospective workers are then relegated to government welfare, where the state takes care of them . and, of course, controls them in the name of helping them.
Minimum-wage laws have no place in a free society. Freedom entails the right of people to enter into mutually beneficial exchanges with one another which provide them with the opportunity to improve their economic well-being. Greenspan has it right. It?s time for Americans to recapture their heritage of economic liberty, and a good way to begin is by repealing the minimum wage, a relic of the bankrupt economic philosophy of state control over economic activity. "
and alan greenspan says it best:
"On the issue of the minimum wage, I still hold to what I said previously. I never argued nor would I that in a period of forced draft pressures in the labor market, which is indeed what we have been seeing recently, that you'll find any result from the minimum wage on the issue of employment. Indeed, I think that it is very unlikely when these labor markets are as tight as they are that the minimum wage has a significant effect in preventing people from coming on the lower ends of the economic ladder to get a job.
My concern is when the labor markets begin to weaken that those people who cannot ? are not allowed by law to accept a wage beneath a certain number, can find no job. As a consequence, they do not get on the first rung of the ladder, cannot achieve job skills, cannot achieve the self- esteem that is necessary to move up the ladder, and I do not perceive that the minimum wage is something which is a benevolent force for people in the lower part of our income groups. I frankly think that it is something which deprives them of gaining what they should be obtaining by right, and I do not consider the minimum wage as a positive force in our society. I think it is precisely counterproductive to what you suggest it is trying to do."
something to think about.
OMG !! Joe Sixpack said something I agree with ,
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