I adore my men

[serene]

Elsenet, there's a discussion about minimum wage that's been largely taken over by the libertarian guys on the list who believe that these sorts of things will just work themselves out if the government just keeps out of it. I just loved someotherguy's response to one of them who sneered at the idea that someone who's not paying minimum wage is necessarily exploiting his/her employees. (He actually posted something with the last line toned down, but I liked it the way it was):

Yes, that's the point of a minimum wage. It's not the minimum mathematically possible wage, or the wage corresponding to the smallest unit of currency in current circulation. It's the least amount of money you can pay someone without automatically being exploitive. If you can't pay minimum wage, then you can't afford to have the work done. Landscape your own damn yard, Imperialist dog.

Comments

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I am against the rubrics used to determine the number, but not against having a number (or, rather, more precisely, having a set of numbers that depend on locality and other factors). As for incentive to work, I think it's a myth (debunked in several books and studies I've either read or seen referenced) that there's a significant population of people who try to stay on benefits rather than working.

(As for apprenticeship, there already exist circumstances in which the minimum wage doesn't apply, and I could possibly get behind a very limited period of time during which an apprentice who was *actually* an apprentice and not just someone the company hired at a lower rate to get around a minimum wage, would be legally able to be hired for less than the minimum wage.)

[misanthropoid.livejournal.com]

The scenario described above was from an actual personal interview. I have also worked with:

The retiree who accepts seasonal employment but is forced to quit in order not to exceed his social security earning limits.

The couple who chooses to neither marry nor cohabitate so that they don't lose her AFDC and WIC benefits in raising the two children they have together.

From the other side of the negotiating table, when I was unemployed five years ago I dismissed out of hand any opportunity that didn't provide me an immediate advantage over the unemployment benefits I was drawing.

Soft landings can and do become feather beds. Not for everyone, and perhaps not even for a statistically significant number of people. I'm not even talking about the outright abusers of the system (round-trip Greyhound ticketholders Chicago to Minneapolis anyone?) I'm just saying that people are very aware of their cost/benefit situations.