The Minimum Wage is Bad for the Poor by William Grafton
A lot of little niceties of daily life just aren't included anymore. Most of us think, well, companies are just cutting back. They don't want to pay for those nice touches anymore. We're only partly right.
When I was in high school, I worked as a warehouse stocker and delivery driver for an electrical supply house. I made $4.25/hour and worked my tail off. There was enough work for 2-3 of us. The problem was that, well, that job wasn't worth much more than $4.25/hour. So, the company made do with one where 2 or 3 would have done a more thorough job.
That company doesn't hire high-school students anymore.
Later, when I was looking for other work, I had this and other jobs that I could list on my resume, to show that I knew what an honest days work was, that I had some appreciation for toil, or that I had skills with invoicing, stocking, or delivery. Many of today's youths won't have that opportunity to work, earn a wage, and gain valuable experience in the work-place.
Employers used to be willing to bring on a young adult and train them. To take someone with no experience, pay them a small wage and pay them more in skills and training and then bump them to a higher wage once they reached an earning capacity. This is becoming another rarity. You see, at a certain point, the cost to the employer got too high, the benefit of training someone from scratch was outweighed by the cost of paying them a minimum wage. So, now requirements for work are going up. You can't learn a skilled trade on the job, you have to know something coming in. Vocational schools are booming, trade schools are booming. Employment for the young is down. By the way, these vocational and trade schools are hideously expensive. Some costing more per semester than a full public university's tuition. And people are paying.
What this tells me is that these mentorships, apprenticeships, or low paying, learn as you go jobs have value much beyond their would be low wage, at least, for the holder of that job. For the employer, not so much. For the employer, it's normally a slight drag on production at first, that slowly yields some production gains until he has a viable employee. Some forms of mentorships and apprenticeships are still available under current laws, but require payment of a minimum wage. For employers faced with this added burden, many have simply elected to stop apprenticeships and shifted the burden for receiving the training squarely onto their future employees.
If a career is a ladder, with each rung you climb giving you some foundation in skills and experience for the next rung you reach, then the minimum wage laws in this country have effectively removed the bottom rungs from the ladder. This is fine for everyone above that or marginally close to that level, but for those just starting out, it signals a lack of opportunity, a mandate that they must go out and pay for their own education and experience instead of learning through work.
Many people comport the minimum wage to a living wage or a minimum standard of living, but this ignores the reality. Greater than 98% of working people in this country make MORE than the minimum wage. This isn't because the government makes them do it. These are market forces at work. Which begs the question about that slightly more than 1%, who are they and why are they making so little.
That small group consists primarily of teenagers. High school and college students with little skills to offer performing jobs with little skills required. There is a lot of competition for these jobs. There are fewer of them each time the minimum wage is increased, and there are always plenty of kids needing to gain employment history. So, who will "suffer" if the minimum wage is abolished? Less than 2% of the workforce stands to have to compete on price for their job. More people competing will realistically force those wage points down. For many of these jobs, it's unlikely that the price point can go too low. People will make their own decisions about what their time is worth and employers will be allowed to find the price point and employment level that they are willing to pay. We would likely see a 10-20% dip in the wage level for these positions, but also are likely to see a reduction in unemployment for the young.
What about the rest of the workers? Wouldn't their wages be dragged down too? Ummm. No. There is no mandate that employers pay the wages they currently pay ABOVE the minimum wage. The only thing that would lower those wages is a slumping economy, a smaller job pool and increased competition for those jobs.
There is this irrational paranoia by people who support these massive government regulations that I will discuss in further detail in the near future, but it revolves around the idea that without the restraining hand of government, businesses would exploit us. My experience has taught me that it is more often that exploitation happens with the assistance of the hand of government restraining the individual from seeking alternatives. Ask yourself this question. If the restraining hand of government is necessary to keep our nation from spiraling into poverty and to keep employers from enslaving us all, why are greater than 98% of jobs paying more than the paltry amount government demands?
Minimum Wage - A Popular Falacy by Tracy A. Ryan
The essential fallacy rests in the assumption that employers have some arbitrary power to set wages. Tell them that the people they pay $5 per hour must now receive $10 and they can't simply smile and comply. Wages are not a function of employer whims. If they were why would any employer offer more than the legal minimum wage to any employee? Unless you're hiring a relative and trying to help them out rather than make a profit, you, as an employer, are compelled by the labor market to offer the market's determined "minimum" wage for whatever type of work you desire to be performed. You are in competition against other employers for the right to purchase the labor of qualified persons.
The labor market is not uniform. There are many types of labor and there are separate markets for each type. If the going rate to hire a full-time secretary with the computer skills you require is $1,800 per month, you're not going to get someone with those skills for half that amount. The supply and demand factors of the labor market are represented by the gross number of workers available in the numerous categories, (supply), and the level of consumer demand for the types of goods and services that are ultimately to be supplied, (demand). There is quite a bit of interplay and adjustment as workers may retrain to enter a more lucrative field, or leave a specialized field for one, such as bookkeeping, that is in more general demand.
Setting a minimum wage above the market wage for any sort of employment must by logic reduce the level of that employment. There has been no increase in demand or reduction in supply. A new law has come about, nothing more. To pay more in wages than the market value for any type of labor means the employer loses money on the transaction. Employers hire people to make money off of their labor not to provide a charitable benefit. Remember that the price the employer can sell his goods and services for is set by the market for those goods and services. Minimum wage laws have no effect on that price. For an employer to attempt to raise prices to cover minimum wages increases will mean a decrease in sales volume and profitability. It doesn't matter that all his competitors face the same problem. Consumers' habits aren't affected. Industries that hire the most number of unskilled workers become less profitable in relationship to all other ventures. The market adjusts for this factor by reducing the size and employment levels in the effected industry.
The public misses the relationship between reduction in employment and minimum wage increase because they are unwilling to look beyond the end of their noses. When minimum wages tend to be low and increases small the effect on existing employees is marginal. This is because an employee's value to a firm generally increases over time as they acquire job experience. A counter clerk at a fast food restaurant with three years on the job is not equivalent to one hired yesterday. With the higher minimum wage law the new employee would not have been hired at all. Since he was never hired he never shows up in the tables or statistics. After all, liberals will argue, unemployment didn't go up when they raised the minimum wage.
People also falsely assume wages for current minimum wage earners would plummet if the minimum wage law was eliminated. Why? If someone is worth 6 dollars an hour in the labor market there's no reason why he would be offered any less because someone who is only worth 4 dollars an hour can also be employed. If it's not profitable to the firm to have someone earning more than 4 dollars an hour doing a certain piece of work why would they be paying them 6 to begin with? They'd be better off leaving the work undone altogether, which is what minimum wage laws cause them to do. An employee's value is based on the state of the labor market and his own productivity. Minimum wage laws do not change either factor. Hawaii has the highest effective minimum wage in the world. One should remember that our prepaid health law is a part of the cost of employing anyone who works over 20 hours per week. Add workers comp, TDI, SUTA, FUTA, employer FICA, etc and you're over 10 bucks an hour before you bat an eyelash. Small wonder Hawaii's welfare to work program has the worst success rate in the Nation.
Since markets set wages and employers can't pay higher than market wages without suffering loss, minimum wage laws cannot increase anyone's wage. Yet such laws can do many harmful things; chief among them being the legal prohibition against any work done for pay for which the market value is less than the minimum set by law. These laws have a disturbing impact on non-profits, many of whom would like to compensate their volunteers in some way, but can't without running into the steep requirements made of employers. Do you ever wonder why it's legal for volunteers to put in long unpaid hours, but a crime to pay them less than the minimum wage?
The higher the minimum wage is set the greater the number of unemployable people. Living as we do in a civilized society some provision for their basic needs as consumers must be substituted for the productive earnings the government has denied them from having. This support comes at the expense of others, reducing their standard of living as well. Plus the loss to the community of the work that could be done by this legally unemployable population means a reduction in the supply of goods and services available in the market and a consequent additional reduction in the standard of living. The minimum wage is truly a lose-lose proposition. Direct handouts to people in need actually do far less harm than interfering with the price mechanisms of the labor market. The minimum wage is an entirely vain attempt to raise purchasing power in the absence of market forces to support that effort.
'''Tracy A. Ryan is the head of the Hawaii Libertarian Party.
Carta del obispo de Segovia,
Ángel Rubio, sobre la familia
Carta del
obispo de Segovia, Ángel Rubio, sobre la familia, ante la fiesta de la Sagrada
Familia
En el
corazón de la Navidad, la Iglesia quiere que celebremos esta fiesta de la
Sagrada Familia. Los pastores y los magos descubrieron al Niño Jesús con
María su Madre y con San José su padre; es decir, lo encontraron en seno de una
familia constituida por un padre y una madre, enteramente como las otras
familias de su tiempo.
Para el Hijo
de Dios hecho hombre su familia tuvo una importancia idéntica a la que tiene la
nuestra para nosotros. Fue el marco más idóneo para nacer, crecer y
desarrollarse como persona. Por eso, Jesús, como hombre, fue lo que fue
su familia porque la familia nos marca. La familia —lo queramos o
no— deja su impronta en las personas, y somos, normalmente, lo que hemos
aprendido y vivido en su seno.
Son bien
conocidos los problemas que en nuestros días asedian al matrimonio y a la
institución familiar, debido a una cierta mentalidad ambiental hedonista,
permisiva e insolidaria. La familia atraviesa dificultades importantes
por las presiones que sufre, particularmente con la plaga del divorcio, que
cobra especialmente sus víctimas en los hijos; con la mentalidad “antivida”,
con la impregnación de una cultura de muerte y de miedo al futuro que reduce el
sentido de acogida de la vida, impide su concepción o la elimina antes de
nacer; y con la insuficiente protección en los aspectos económico, social y de
vivienda o con el injusto tratamiento que en estos campos muchas familias se
ven sometidas. Especial dificultad en estos momentos son algunas
legislaciones en favor de ciertas uniones, que atentan contra el matrimonio y
la familia, vulneran la más elemental dignidad y verdad del ser humano,
conducen a la quiebra de humanidad o a ahondar en ella, y ponen en peligro, en
consecuencia, la estabilidad de la misma sociedad.
Por eso es
tan sumamente necesario y apremiante presentar con autenticidad el ideal de la
familia según el designio de Dios, basado en la unidad y fidelidad del
matrimonio, abierto a la fecundidad, guiado por el amor. Son estos
aspectos los que corresponden mejor a las exigencias del corazón humano, aunque
contrasten con las propuestas del mundo.
Todos, sin
excepción, estamos obligados a promover y fortalecer los valores y exigencias
de la familia. Esta debe ser ayudada y defendida mediante medidas
sociales apropiadas. La sociedad tiene la grave responsabilidad de
apoyar y vigorizar la familia, y su fundamento que es el matrimonio único e
indisoluble. La misma sociedad tiene el inexorable deber de proteger y
defender la vida, cuyo santuario es la familia, así como dotar a ésta de los
medios necesarios —económicos, jurídicos, educativos, de vivienda y trabajo—
para que pueda cumplir con los fines que le corresponden a su propia verdad o
naturaleza y asegurar la prosperidad doméstica en dignidad y justicia.
No ayudar debidamente a la familia constituye una actitud irresponsable y
suicida que conduce a la humanidad por derroteros de crisis, deterioro y
destrucción de incalculables consecuencias. La actual legislación, que
ni siquiera reconoce la realidad humana del matrimonio en su especificidad con
una institución o figura jurídica adecuada, debe ser corregida y mejorada
porque compromete seriamente el bien común. (cf. Conferencia
Episcopal Española, La verdad del amor humano, 2012).
Pero el
egoísmo, que triunfa en la vida matrimonial y familiar de España, tal vez como
en ningún otro campo de las relaciones sociales, debe ser combatido también en
el ámbito de la educación en general y, por supuesto, de la formación católica
y de la atención pastoral matrimonial y familiar. El Papa Francisco ha
puesto de relieve la trascendencia del problema al convocar, de modo casi
urgente, nada menos que dos Sínodos de los Obispos consecutivos, en dos años,
sobre la familia y su evangelización. Recientemente, en el encuentro con
las familias en Roma, con motivo del Año de la fe, el Papa ha exhortado a los
esposos a: «ponerse en marcha y caminar juntos. ¡Y esto es el
matrimonio! Ponerse en marcha y caminar juntos, tomados de la mano,
encomendándose a la gran mano del Señor. ¡Tomados de la mano siempre y
para toda la vida! ¡Y haciendo caso omiso de esa cultura de la provisionalidad,
que nos hace trizas la vida!».
+ Ángel Rubio Castro
Obispo de Segovia
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