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Minimum wage: Is it fair?

This Debate has 49 articles on the No side and 24 articles on the Yes side. Click here to see all the articles rated and ranked by Helium members.

Yes

17 of 49

No

One good way to think about things like minimum wage is to imagine what it would be like without it. Actually in this case we don't have to imagine, there was a time when there was no minimum wage in the U.S. All we have to do is look at what happened to workers back then.

For example one young man didn't want to stay on the farm so he approached a dry-goods dealer in town and asked for a job. After the guy decided to hire him, the young man asked what he would be paid. "Pay? Your pay? You should pay me for working here, you don't know anything about the business. After you learn enough to be useful I'll start paying you." The young man worked three months for absolutely no pay.

How would you like to be that young man? For three months you are paid nothing, then you get a pittance after that. What did he think of his employer? Well, later he not only thanked the man for valuable lessons, but made him a partner in his own business. Maybe you've heard of that young man. His name was F.W. Woolworth and he became one of the world's wealthiest men. What would have happened had that employer been forced to pay Woolworth more than his meager skills were worth?

What does a minimum wage accomplish? Well, it does help a few people make more money. However it also forces some employers to not hire people they would otherwise employ. If a worker's output is less than his pay, it makes no sense to hire him. The company may drop that part of the business, move the work overseas, or go to automation to avoid paying more than it can recoup for the work done. That causes some people to remain unemployed. Most of those who remain unemployed would not remain long in their first jobs. They would learn on the job, then move up to better paying employment.

The minimum wage also drives inflation as employers raise prices to recoup costs. In fact it can drive some companies out of business. If they cannot compete with the higher costs, they have no choice but to go out of business. That causes yet more unemployment.

In many cases, minimum wage amounts to welfare, or attempted welfare, for workers whose work is not worth their pay. It attempts to force employers to provide that welfare. If we are going to provide welfare to those people, it should be done honestly through taxes. We should not try to force employers to fund welfare for those who cannot or will not earn their pay.

But wait, some say! What about a living wage? Shouldn't employers pay a living wage?

The response is that first you have to define what a living wage is. What is a living wage for the teenager flipping burgers to earn money to buy a stereo or car? For the wife getting out of the house and earning a bit extra? For the inner city person otherwise unemployed who somehow manages to survive on less than minimum wage if unemployed? The term "living wage" is rather meaningless.

The fact is that few minimum wage earners are responsible for supporting an entire household. Many live with family. Many live with roommates. Many have other sources of income such as pensions or Social Security. The claim that minimum wage should allow a person to support a family is nonsense.

And what is required for living? Most people in this world still get by with less than what the poor in the U.S. and other developed countries have. They don't have televisions, much less cable. They don't smoke a pack a day. They don't have cars or even bus fare, they often walk miles to work. They don't have all the stuff we often think of as necessities.

No, the minimum wage is not fair. It is unfair to employers who are forced to cut back. It is unfair to those they would hire who would learn on the job. It is unfair to society because it does not allow people to freely exchange their skills for what those skills are worth in either money or learning. It is unfair to the economy as a whole because it denies us the skills people would develop if they really learned from the bottom up starting at jobs not now available.