The Problem: Poverty
The Government's "Solution": The Minimum Wage
The Result: Unemployment
The Real Solution:
Liberty Under God
- Abolish minimum wage laws; let young, unskilled workers bid for jobs to increase their skills, move up the ladder
The Facts:
- The average family affected by the minimum wage has an annual income of $38,000 because 70% of minimum-wage workers live with a working spouse or relatives.
- The average income of minimum-wage workers increases by 30% within one year of employment on the basis of learned skills.
- Wage increases due to increased skill levels explain the remarkable fact that only 2.8% of workers over the age of 30 are receiving the minimum wage.
- If an unskilled worker is forced by law to charge more than he is worth, his chances of learning skills and moving up the economic ladder are suffocated.
- Americans are the most generous people on earth, in terms of both time and money. When Liberty Under God
flourishes, you will see people helping people -- from the heart, not under government compulsion.
The Bible says "The laborer
is worthy of his hire." But
Minimum wage laws force businesses to be charitable. Businesses cannot be charitable if they go out of business. A
business will go out of business if forced to pay $8.00 an hour to someone who only produces $3.00 worth of goods and services. Instead of getting a job, experience,
skills, discipline, a recommendation, and a future, minimum wage laws force the unskilled into perpetual unemployment, poverty and welfare dependence.
Why Labor Unions Advocate a Government-Imposed Minimum Wage
- Workers who are willing to accept a low wage compete against workers who demand a higher wage. This is why unions of high-paid workers want the government to force
competing workers to be paid a higher salary than employers are willing to pay them. An employer might get as much work done by two low-paid workers as he would from
one union worker -- and pay less in salaries.
Raising Rival's Costs - Why does WalMart support minimum wage
legislation?- "[T]hese employers will benefit from an increase in the minimum wage because it will raise the costs of their rivals. This is why unions have typically been in
favor of the minimum wage even when their own workers make much more than the minimum."
- Why
Labor Unions want to Raise the Minimum Wage | Progressive U
- Union Members, Not Minimum-Wage Earners, Benefit When the Minimum Wage Rises
- Supporters of raising the minimum wage argue it will raise the earnings of low-income workers. Labor unions are among the most prominent of these supporters, a fact
that makes little intuitive sense, because very few union members work for the minimum wage. Unions, however, are not just being altruistic when they push to raise the
minimum wage. A higher minimum wage increases the expense of hiring unskilled workers. This makes hiring skilled union members more attractive and could raise the
earnings of union members who compete with minimum wage workers by 20–40 percent. Meanwhile, non-union, low-skilled workers' earnings actually fall due to reduced
working hours and fewer job opportunities.
- The Minimum Wage: Washington's Perennial Myth
- The success of a union depends on its ability to maintain higher-than-market wages and provide secure jobs for its members. If it cannot offer the benefit of higher
wages, a union will quickly lose its members. Higher wages can be obtained only by excluding some workers from the relevant labor markets. As [Nobel Prize-winning
economist] F. A. Hayek has pointed out, "Unions have not achieved their present magnitude and power by merely achieving the right of association. They have become
what they are largely in consequence of the grant, by legislation and jurisdiction, of unique privileges which no other associations or individuals enjoy."
- As would be expected, labor unions are the main political force behind minimum-wage legislation. Although unions already hold privileged positions in labor markets,
minimum wages further increase their gains by raising employers' labor costs. As long as union members earn wages above the minimum rate, their positions are made more
secure by the government policy that eliminates those who might undercut the union wage. People willing to work for less than the government's minimum are not allowed
into the labor market at all. Indeed, union leader Edward T. Hanley stated in a catering industry employees' publication, "The purpose of the minimum wage is to .
. . provide a floor from which we can upgrade your compensation through collective bargaining."
- The Union Hunt for More Victims - George Reisman - Mises Institute
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we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a
question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to
what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right.
Joseph
Goebbels, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932).
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I'm trying to make my business a success.
I need help to get job xyz done. I put out an ad, "Help Wanted." Two people apply to do job xyz for me. Both could do the job, but
one is willing to work for less than the other. It's part of her strategy to work hard and get a good recommendation from me, her former employer, so she can get a much
better job.
The government threatens to lock me in a cage with a violent psychopath if I hire her at that wage. Why? Because she's
willing to work for less than the "minimum wage."
I calculate that if I pay someone the "minimum wage" to do job xyz, I will be one of the 50-80% of businesses who fail. Getting job xyz
done does not bring in enough additional sales to hire someone at the "minimum wage." So I have to work extra hours to do it myself. I must deny prospective
employees the benefits of getting work experience and moving up the employment ladder.
I am not rich. I am not "greedy." I'm just trying to stay in business and feed my family by selling goods or services which consumers want. I'm willing to write
a good letter of recommendation for a good employee. I'm even willing to "mentor" my new employee with free advice and employment strategies. But the government
threatens violence against me if we make a voluntary and mutually-beneficial employment contract.
Even if I were a rich and greedy person — maybe someone who had a bad experience with a poor person when I was a child and as an adult I project my anger on to all poor
people and try to cheat them and oppress them — is the best way to transform me from a cruel and heartless person into a compassionate and "heartful"
person to threaten me with unspeakable violence in a cage? Even if you could cite an example of a cruel and heartless person who, when confronted by government violence in
prison, pleaded with God for safety and promised that he would never oppress the poor if he were spared the violence, is that really the way that the God of the Bible
instructs us to change the hearts of wicked people?