A company should be able to have someone come in to sweep the floors, empty, the trash, and get the coffee for zero pay in exchange for the experience. Substitute $1, $2, $3 … per hour for zero if you like but each increase will decrease the number of jobs created.
I don’t have a problem with a minimum wage per se. I have a problem with having a minimum wage of $7/hr but then allowing products from China where the wages are $0.17/hr to compete against us.
That’s a recipe for off-shoring. Raise the import tariffs enough to offset the effects of minimum wage and taxes. Eliminate the incentives to off-shore.
No.
Capital create jobs. Private capital.
The last year that the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate was the year before the first federal minimum wage law was passed.
Minimum Wage Madness, by Thomas Sowell
"In the United States, the last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate — 1930 — was also the last year when there was no federal minimum wage law. Inflation in the 1940s raised the pay of even unskilled workers above the minimum wage set in 1938. Economically, it was the same as if there were no minimum wage law by the late 1940s.
"In 1948 the unemployment rate of black 16-year-old and 17-year-old males was 9.4 percent. This was a fraction of what it would become in even the most prosperous years from 1958 on, as the minimum wage was raised repeatedly to keep up with inflation."
We already have that system in place, it is called internship. But one problem with your idea is that even if an infinite number of jobs are created that pay nothing, you gain nothing.
Yes. It creates jobs at the unemployment and welfare offices to accommodate the increased demand.
No, it kills jobs.
Minimum wage is a dollar figure someone will get for working at a place that pays minimum wage.
Every word and thought process that follows that headline is at best, misplaced.
Minimum wage creates minimum jobs.
There are two very nice young black men working at Gold’s Gym. They both like to work out and they get to do that free as employees. I’m fairly certain they’re minimum wage employees. They just walk around cleaning things all day. No skills whatsoever. I’ve spoken at length with both of them. They’re both in their thirties, have zero ambition and have never held another job. Seriously. Let’s suppose that Gold’s had to pay them $15/hour instead of (I think) $7.80. I’m certain that at least one or possibly both would be let go. I know the manager and he’d give each of the remaining employees a rag with instructions to wipe as they walk.
This is a small town and gym membership is cheap as dirt; $9.90/month. In Tampa it’s $35/month. (But according to the people in Tampa much of it is paid by insurance, which explains the high price.)
Right now, the employees get to make extra money by being personal trainers. They work in the gym at (probably) minimum wage, but get to solicit personal training gigs that can pay much more. If the gym had to pay $15/hour how many of these guys would be given the chance to work there? Many fewer, I’d guess. And, us locals would end up paying more for membership. At $35/month, I’d quit.
There’s a point for all businesses where costs exceed what the market will bear. At that point, they go out of business.
“Every employee must bring more to the company than they take in pay and benefits.”
This isn’t true. A company must eventually take in more than it spends (on balance), but there are many ways to stay in business despite losing money, a la Twitter, Amazon.com, etc. A company can take on more debt or rely on government intervention to survive. Plus, some employees might make a company many times what they earn, helping pay for less productive employees. In the real world, large corporations can easily hide entire departments of employees that lose money, and the companies can still be quite profitable on balance.
It’s time for a national conversation on the minimum wage.
Why, for instance, is there any minimum wage whatsoever?
Increasing it..I meant to say. Where is my post? I wanted to edit it. It’s gone???
No, it prevents them.
>>A company should be able to have someone come in to sweep the floors, empty, the trash, and get the coffee for zero> pay in exchange for the experience.
Companies don’t hire people based on experience like that. This isn’t 1930! They want specific skills so the new hire can “hit the ground running”. They insist on credentials, diplomas, degrees. And, most of all, they want DIVERSITY so they can put some extra check marks on their EEOC report to the shareholders.
And when they get all that stuff, they tell you that you aren’t special and only deserve the bare minimum to keep you coming back.
The problem with letting the market work is that the corporations have outsourced so much of the work already. The work they keep domestic has been doubled and tripled up on the remaining employees in the name of efficiency and productivity. So, 25% of the nation is out of work and now the employers say, “There’s a dozen applicants for your job. So you work for what I’m willing to pay.”
Even when they try to hire and can’t find a single fully-qualified applicant (but get plenty of unqualified applicants), they still tell the employees they have that they can be replaced at the drop of a hat.
Central planning is not the answer. But, a “free” market that allows an employer to increase a worker’s workload without additional compensation is not the answer either. We need morals and ethics that extend beyond the bottom line.
I don’t buy junk food or other junk from junk retail stores or use much of any other services.
We already have that, it’s called “outsourcing”. If you produce something in the US, or offer a service in the US, that can be done in China, and haven’t moved your operation there yet, you are already behind the curve, and shouldn’t run a business. Your competition bought into the asian slave trade long ago, and will run circles around you. The formerly employed masses of the US are the government’s and taxpayer’s problem now. Now if the one percent crowd could just dispose of all of those useless eaters, we would be all set. Sound good to you?
The moral of this story is you can’t compete against government backed slave labor. Pay people for the value they bring to your business, and if you want to pay nothing, expect nothing in return. And unpaid interns will just wind up being your competition in the long run, because they get to learn from your mistakes, free of charge, at your expense.
Textbook answer: NO.