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this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Minimum wage is a scam. When there is a floor employers aim for that instead of having to compete. It is like pre-collusion around wages.
It seems like collusion because a lot of employers stick there. But that's only because those employers would be paying you less if they legally could. Companies can always pay up for better work if they value it.
Umm, what?
So, without minimum wage, the floor would be zero. If corpos aim for the floor, by your own argument they would absolutely pay less if it was legal.
What are you smoking?? And why aren't you sharing?!
But no one would actually work for free, so now the company has to actually decide how much it values the work at.
Look at what happened with retail and fast-food after lockdowns lifted in the US: wages surged for the bottom 10% of earners. These places couldn't get people to work for minimum wage, so they had to ignore minimum wage and actually value the work accordingly. As a result, income saw some pretty strong growth for those employees.
What a minimum wage does is set the opening baseline for negotiation. The company can say, "We know this is a shitty job that anyone can do, and the government says that kind of work is worth $7.25." That creates a hurdle to discourage an employee from negotiating for more.
Minimum wage needs to be adjusted for inflation to match what it was originally intended for, or it needs to be abolished. Right now, it just gives employers a very low starting point for their bad-faith negotiations.
It confuses me that did not address the issue that a lack of minimum wage would allow employers to pay people less. But clearly, if it's totally legal to pay people less, the only logical outcome is the opposite? Yeah, no.
But, whatever. Clearly, the utter lack of anything even resembling logic in your argument doesn't bother you. Doesn't change the fact that you're wrong, of course. So, yeah, whatever. Go ahead and give us all another nonsense explanation for a clearly flawed premise, since that seems to amuse you or something. I dunno.
Did you even read my comment? Yes, without minimum wage an employer could theoretically pay an employee less. But minimum wage already doesn't pay enough for people to survive. All it is doing is giving employers a solid number they can point to and say, "Well, the government says this work is only worth $7.25!"
No one can survive on the current federal minimum wage, but employers are using that as a guideline when offering wages instead of looking at their business needs or local competition. That means the current minimum wage is actively harming employees. So, again:
Yes, I did read your post. If companies could legally pay less, many would. Hand waving the issue does not address the fact that it is a major flaw in your argument. I do not accept that abolishing minimum wage would have anything other than a negative effect on employees. Yes, having it set too low is a problem. Removing minimum wage will not solve that problem.
Your argument has circled back on itself multiple times. So, whatever, I give up. Go on with your bad self, or...whatever...
You do realize that anyone could still pay a higher wage to compete right?
You must be confusing it with maximum wage, which is the opposite and not a thing.
Today is your day to shine. You have received the dumbest first day on lemmy award.
You mentioned the floor is what they're aiming for but without a minimum wage the floor is zero. You fucking potato.
You can disagree without being rude you absolute muppet.
I save polite disagreement for valid discussions.
That's not how any of this works.
Fucking idiot. We literally put those laws in place because of history. Read a book.
Capitalism itself is the scam, ownership is fake justification for exploitation and suggests a false level of meritocracy. Capitalists aren't Capitalists because they are smarter or more competent, but because they have money, and can grow that money in the M-C-M' circuit.
Minimum wage is an absolute necessity because Capitalists would abuse their power to pay as little as possible otherwise. The only places a minimum wage are proven to be unnecessary is in extremely unionized countries where Unions have all of the bargaining power they need.
This is wrong for several reasons:
1: even a worker-owned co-op would seek to limit new hires, because the pool of revenue is only so big. This is no different from wanting to pay someone as little as possible, ethically.
2: if minimum wage was an absolute necessity and markets didn't drive wages, vastly more people would be paid at minimum wage.
Minimum wage means if they could get away with paying you less they would, but if it weren't for those pesky laws. But let's be real here, they already get away with huge amounts of wage theft, especially for minimum wage workers. The minimum was always meant to be the minimum amount needed to live. It's just corporations/oligarchs wanted the masses more desperate because they are easier to exploit. Oh there's middle class, and lower class and upper class. Those are "UnSkIlLeD" labor jobs, they don't deserve a living wage. It's always been a war against the working class and they have us fighting with ourselves over this shit. NWBTCW
You: Employers aim for the floor! Also you: The floor should be 0!
You really don't know how capitalism works do you?
You all are so short sighted there isn't even a conversation to be had. Try this https://youtu.be/A-I4Vsl-AEg lots of background but you can skip to 15min
The way I see it is higher minimum wage will just increase inflation which is already ridiculous. It would be better to tax/cap corporate profits, limit ceo compensation to 10 or 20x the lowest paid employee's salary etc. People not earning a living wage is a symptom of broader issues, not the problem itself. By manipulating this symptom there are knock on effects that will just make things worse.
Oh they got a youtube video!! I'm totally convinced!! Youtube!!! Youtube everyone!!!
They got a youtube video everyone!! DEBATE OVER
Read a fucking book. Exploitation will occur if you allow the free market to fully set the price of labor.
John Clark
Wages are already massively above minimum wage for the overwhelming majority of workers, so the market is currently setting the price for labor.
Well if the market is currently setting the price of labor for the majority of Americans, problem solved, let’s get rid of the minimum wage and get to exploiting the 1.1M Americans currently making it. 🙄
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2021/home.htm
1.1 million Americans is less than 1/2 of 1% of the population, which is my entire point - the market is very much setting the price for their labor.
Of those 1.1 million, 500k are between 16 and 24 years old - I e. These are not their eventual careers, and the job is shit work no one wants. These are exactly who minimum wage laws should protect, and I agree it should be higher, but your extrapolation that markets cannot dictate wages is objectively false.
Ideally, minimum wage would serve to address the externality of jobs that are not competitive in the marketplace of wages, which is nominally what they do now, but I think both of us would agree they do a poor job of that.