Doing the minimum wage right

[BLB_Oregon]

vern humphrey:

Ah, but you see some people are only good enough to mop the floors, empty the trash cans, clean the toilets, peel the potatoes, pick the produce, and change the diapers.

Our liberal elite realize there must be a permanent underclass – and the system is rigged to create and maintain one.

That’s why the education system is so bad.

Good enough? If they work hard all day, they’re good enough to get a decent wage. If you don’t pay them a decent wage, then you had better make this college education you want for them free and offered at night, so they can go to school and get something better… because right now, a high school education, even a very good one, doesn’t cut it when you’re out competing for good-paying jobs.

I taught at a community college. You come and tell my students that they’ll have an easier time getting their education if you keep their pay low–when they already have to skip semesters until they have the money for more tuition. Right. They may not have their educations finished, but they’re not stupid. And let me tell you, too… they come to office hours, they work their hind ends off, and there are still some of them that aren’t going to make it into nursing school. They still have dignity as human beings.

I grew up around people who did manual labor for a living. It is labor that can be learned without more than a high school education and sometimes with a gradeschool education. It is honest work. Is it the pinnacle of mental challenge and monetary compensation? No. Would you want to help them to have the opportunity to move on? Of course. But what they do is still nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be looked down upon. It deserves to be paid at a rate that reflects that a human being who needs a decent home and food to eat is doing it.

You haven’t answered my question. That work is there, and you only have to count heads to see that it is way more than the high school kids are going to be able to do. Without getting into the fact that even the high school kids need to make enough to pay for college, who is going to do this stuff? Don’t they need to be paid a wage they can live on?

My dad owned a small business. The people who worked for him were our neighbors. We kids went to school with their kids. My dad could have let them look at our personal finances and the company books and compare theirs to ours. He wouldn’t have had trouble looking them in the eye. Don’t tell me, in a world where CEOs are making over 200 times what their lowest paid workers are making–even when the company is going broke!!–that that is the norm you are talking about. It is pretty obvious which elite thinks they are better than the rest of the world.

So, there is a “liberal elite” that aims to prepare our students for minimum wage work, while the business sector clamors for better? Where did you get that? I don’t know any teachers like that. I don’t know any college professors like that. I don’t know any Democrats that have that on their platform. What “liberal elite” are you talking about? You may well quarrel with their methods, but you mischaracterize their aims. It seems to me that your complaint about how business people are treated in this rhetoric cuts both ways.

 

[vern_humphrey]

BLB_Oregon:

Good enough? If they work hard all day, they’re good enough to get a decent wage.

So when do you start hiring people for your new business?

BLB_Oregon:

If you don’t pay them a decent wage, then you had better make this college education you want for them free and offered at night, so they can go to school and get something better… because right now, a high school education, even a very good one, doesn’t cut it when you’re out competing for good-paying jobs.

That’s because we have a lousy education system – a kid who graduates from high school OUGHT to have marketable skills. But they don’t.

BLB_Oregon:

I taught at a community college. You come and tell my students that they’ll have an easier time getting their education if you keep their pay low–when they already have to skip semesters until they have the money for more tuition.

You go and tell businesses they can pay more for labor than that labor ads in value to their business and still make a proft.

Better still, start your own business and learn economics first hand.

BLB_Oregon:

Right. They may not have their educations finished, but they’re not stupid.

You seem to think they are – and fit only to “to mop the floors, empty the trash cans, clean the toilets, peel the potatoes, pick the produce, and change the diapers” for the rest of their lives.

BLB_Oregon:

And let me tell you, too… they come to office hours, they work their hind ends off, and there are still some of them that aren’t going to make it into nursing school. They still have dignity as human beings.

Too bad they run into people like you who think they’re only fit “to mop the floors, empty the trash cans, clean the toilets, peel the potatoes, pick the produce, and change the diapers” for the rest of their lives.

BLB_Oregon:

I grew up around people who did manual labor for a living. It is labor that can be learned without more than a high school education and sometimes with a gradeschool education.

Yep. The old liberal elitism – some people are only fit “to mop the floors, empty the trash cans, clean the toilets, peel the potatoes, pick the produce, and change the diapers” for the rest of their lives.

BLB_Oregon:

It is honest work. Is it the pinnacle of mental challenge and monetary compensation? No. Would you want to help them to have the opportunity to move on? Of course. But what they do is still nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be looked down upon. It deserves to be paid at a rate that reflects that a human being who needs a decent home and food to eat is doing it.

But being caught between liberal elitism which looks down on them, failes to provide them with a good education, and then prices the only jobs they can do out of the market, many of them have no chance.

BLB_Oregon:

IYou haven’t answered my question. That work is there, and you only have to count heads to see that it is way more than the high school kids are going to be able to do. Without getting into the fact that even the high school kids need to make enough to pay for college, who is going to do this stuff? Don’t they need to be paid a wage they can live on?

I know lots of kids working part-time jobs – not enough to live on, but they still live at home.

Now, if our schools did a decent job by these kids, they could get better jobs to pay for their education.

BLB_Oregon:

IMy dad owned a small business. The people who worked for him were our neighbors. We kids went to school with their kids. My dad could have let them look at our personal finances and the company books and compare theirs to ours. He wouldn’t have had trouble looking them in the eye.

And did he pay his employees more than their labor brought into the business? I’ll bet he didn’t!

BLB_Oregon:

IDon’t tell me, in a world where CEOs are making over 200 times what their lowest paid workers are making–even when the company is going broke!!–that that is the norm you are talking about. It is pretty obvious which elite thinks they are better than the rest of the world.

Most minimum wage jobs are with small companies and owner-operated franchises. Large corporations like General Motors don’t have a high proportion of bottom-run jobs.

BLB_Oregon:

ISo, there is a “liberal elite” that aims to prepare our students for minimum wage work, while the business sector clamors for better?

You give the liberal elite too much credit – they FAIL to prepare children for jobs.

BLB_Oregon:

IWhere did you get that? I don’t know any teachers like that. I don’t know any college professors like that.

Arkansas has an adult illitracy rate of 22%. Phillips County (in my Congressional district) has 43%. Lee County (also in my district) has 45%. In addition, of Arkansans who go to college, 58% must take remedial courses – that is, they leave high school without mastering high school subjects.

(continued)

 

[vern_humphrey]

BLB_Oregon:

II don’t know any Democrats that have that on their platform. What “liberal elite” are you talking about? You may well quarrel with their methods, but you mischaracterize their aims. It seems to me that your complaint about how business people are treated in this rhetoric cuts both ways.

Arkansas has been run by the Democratic Party since 1877. There are currently only 28 Republican State Representatives (out of 100) and 8 Republican State Senators (out of 35.)

If Democrats REALLY wanted to provide a good education to every child, they’ve had 128 years to accomplish that goal.

When a poor school district (Lake View) sued over the disparity in education between rich and poor districts, a series of Democratic Attorneys General fought the suit. Children who started school the year the suit was filed finished school last year – and nothing has improved.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

vern humphrey:

Arkansas has been run by the Democratic Party since 1877. There are currently only 28 Republican State Representatives (out of 100) and 8 Republican State Senators (out of 35.)

If Democrats REALLY wanted to provide a good education to every child, they’ve had 128 years to accomplish that goal.

When a poor school district (Lake View) sued over the disparity in education between rich and poor districts, a series of Democratic Attorneys General fought the suit. Children who started school the year the suit was filed finished school last year – and nothing has improved.

I have no quarrel with your complaints about education. For all I know, things are even worse where you live than you paint them.

I’m just arguing that even the best and most wide-reaching education won’t get all the menial work done, at least not at present. Somebody has to do it, and that somebody ought to get a wage befitting the dignity of all human work.

 

[vern_humphrey]

BLB_Oregon:

I have no quarrel with your complaints about education. For all I know, things are even worse where you live than you paint them.

I’m just arguing that even the best and most wide-reaching education won’t get all the menial work done, at least not at present. Somebody has to do it, and that somebody ought to get a wage befitting the dignity of all human work.

Menial jobs should be paid at what they’re worth – not at an inflated rate. The overwhelming majority of the people who do such jobs are taking them only temporary as they move up the ladder.

Raising the minimum wage is a zero-sum game. While SOME people will draw a little more for their work, OTHER people will be blocked, unable to find jobs.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

vern humphrey:

Menial jobs should be paid at what they’re worth – not at an inflated rate. The overwhelming majority of the people who do such jobs are taking them only temporary as they move up the ladder.

Raising the minimum wage is a zero-sum game. While SOME people will draw a little more for their work, OTHER people will be blocked, unable to find jobs.

My earlier point is that, in Dicken’s time, a good slice of the population was starving on “the going rate.” History tells us that using “the going rate” is not ethically defensible for the minimum pay rate for adults expected to feed themselves on that for any length of time…particularly not when you have anything but famine conditions at the top of the pay scale.

Through history, there have been employers willing to starve their workers in order to enrich themselves. This is a grave injustice, something that cannot be tolerated. It is not a situation that is a necessary cost of doing business.

 

[vern_humphrey]

BLB_Oregon:

My earlier point is that, in Dicken’s time, a good slice of the population was starving on “the going rate.” History tells us that using “the going rate” is not ethically defensible for the minimum pay rate for adults expected to feed themselves on that for any length of time…particularly not when you have anything but famine conditions at the top of the pay scale.

Dickins has been dead for a century, and he wrote fiction. I had a good time in Rochester, England when I went there on a project, tracking him and his family – his father was a ne’er do well, and that, not exploitation by “capitalists,” was the cause of the Dickens’ family problems. The same is true with Frank McCort’s family.

Note that both Dickens and McCort raised themselves out of poverty once they took responsibility for their own fate.

BLB_Oregon:

Through history, there have been employers willing to starve their workers in order to enrich themselves. This is a grave injustice, something that cannot be tolerated. It is not a situation that is a necessary cost of doing business.

In anything short of peonage, employees can leave rather than work for such employers.

With a decent education, they are better able to find jobs anywhere they go.

 

[Lisa_N]

Again I point to the problem of illegals and how this makes minimum wage uneconomic. If you have someone who will do the job for less than minimum, off the books, under the table or as a “contractor” then you can peg the minimum wage at ten bucks an hour and you’ll still have that same group of people who can’t get work because there isn’t anything that equates their skill set to what must be paid as minimum wage.

Until we solve the problem of all the illegals here who actually drive down the value of a man hour, we are just wasting time arguing about a minimum wage that isn’t being paid because it’s more than ‘the traffic will bear’ while there are people willing to take these jobs at the market value.

As to the Dickensonian comparisons, aside from the point that he did write (very good) fiction that was necessarily exaggerated to make a point, the reality is that a rising tide floats all boats. The economy at the time was very limited, very stagnant and presumably there were more people available than jobs. Employers compete for good employees and as I think Vern said, most minimum wage jobs are oriented to part timers, teens, and people not on a career track with McDonalds. As the economy expands and opportunities increase, there are more jobs than people to fill them (again unless we import our labor force). We are not looking at an 19th century economy now.

Lisa N

 

[vern_humphrey]

Lisa N:

Again I point to the problem of illegals and how this makes minimum wage uneconomic. If you have someone who will do the job for less than minimum, off the books, under the table or as a “contractor” then you can peg the minimum wage at ten bucks an hour and you’ll still have that same group of people who can’t get work because there isn’t anything that equates their skill set to what must be paid as minimum wage.

Amen.

One natural consequence of trying to force the economy to do what it will not do naturally is that you create black markets – in this case, a labor black market. Americans lose out on jobs that illegals are willing to take.

You would think anyone with a sense of history would know this – a classic example is the Soviet Collectivization. Farms were forcibly collectivized (at an enormous cost in lives – after the Holocaust and Japanese atrocities in China, it may be the third most brutal massacre in human history.)

But socialist ideology demanded it – so millions died to accomplish it.

And what happened? Privately tended gardens, with produce sold under the table, out-performed all the huge collective farms!

 

[BLB_Oregon]

Ok, then forget Dickens and Frank McCourt, if you would rather. We’re on a Catholic forum, so let’s call Church teaching the trump suit, put the chips in, and get down to playing cards.

What I am talking about is neither liberal extremism nor socialism, let alone communism. In fact, it can be drawn directly from the writings of Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Workers, 1891) and many encyclicals since–which is to say, from the teachings of the Catholic Church from the start of the Industrial Age up until the present.

In protecting the rights of private individuals, however, special consideration must be given to the weak and the poor. For the nation, as it were, of the rich, is guarded by its own defenses and is in less need of governmental protection, whereas the suffering multitude, without the means to protect itself, relies especially on the protection of the State. Wherefore, since wage workers are numbered among the great mass of the needy, the State must include them under its special care and foresight. (#54)
….

The following duties . . . concern rich men and employers: Workers are not to be treated as slaves; justice demands that the dignity of human personality be respected in them, … gainful occupations are not a mark of shame to man, but rather of respect, as they provide him with an honorable means of supporting life.

It is shameful and inhuman, however, to use men as things for gain and to put no more value on them than what they are worth in muscle and energy. (#31)

….
Equity therefore commands that public authority show proper concern for the worker so that from what he contributes to the common good he may receive what will enable him, housed, clothed, and secure, to live his life without hardship. Whence, it follows that all those measures ought to be favored which seem in any way capable of benefiting the condition of workers. Such solicitude is so far from injuring anyone, that it is destined rather to benefit all, because it is of absolute interest to the State that those citizens should not be miserable in every respect from whom such necessary goods proceed. (#51)

History’s lesson is that responses to the siren call of communism and the tragic revolutions that follow come not from over-solicitude for the poor, but from the refusal to deal justly with them. If the condition of the poorest workers doing an honest day’s work are defended as outlined above in ways other than the establishment of a minimum wage, fine. I am also not advocating a wage beyond what is required to be “housed, clothed, and secure”. No one needs internet access and cable TV to keep body and soul together. If I have implied otherwise, I stand corrected.

Anyone that wants to chime in on this with rebuttals from the catechism or other encyclicals, have at it. That’s all I have to throw into the pot. There gets to be a point when we’re just going to be talking past each other, in circles.

 

[Jeffrey]

Build the wall(s) to protect our borders. Have the National Guard patrol said borders.
Lisa N:

Again I point to the problem of illegals and how this makes minimum wage uneconomic. If you have someone who will do the job for less than minimum, off the books, under the table or as a “contractor” then you can peg the minimum wage at ten bucks an hour and you’ll still have that same group of people who can’t get work because there isn’t anything that equates their skill set to what must be paid as minimum wage.

Until we solve the problem of all the illegals here who actually drive down the value of a man hour, we are just wasting time arguing about a minimum wage that isn’t being paid because it’s more than ‘the traffic will bear’ while there are people willing to take these jobs at the market value.

As to the Dickensonian comparisons, aside from the point that he did write (very good) fiction that was necessarily exaggerated to make a point, the reality is that a rising tide floats all boats. The economy at the time was very limited, very stagnant and presumably there were more people available than jobs. Employers compete for good employees and as I think Vern said, most minimum wage jobs are oriented to part timers, teens, and people not on a career track with McDonalds. As the economy expands and opportunities increase, there are more jobs than people to fill them (again unless we import our labor force). We are not looking at an 19th century economy now.

Lisa N

 

[vern_humphrey]

BLB_Oregon:

Ok, then forget Dickens and Frank McCourt, if you would rather. We’re on a Catholic forum, so let’s call Church teaching the trump suit, put the chips in, and get down to playing cards.

What I am talking about is neither liberal extremism nor socialism, let alone communism. In fact, it can be drawn directly from the writings of Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Workers, 1891) and many encyclicals since–which is to say, from the teachings of the Catholic Church from the start of the Industrial Age up until the present.
.

But none of this mandates forcing employers to pay more than a job is worth.

As we have seen, such laws have exactly the opposite effect of that intended. They don’t make workers’ lives easier – they reduce the number of jobs available and choke off opportunity for advancement.

If we want to truly help the poor, we should demand quality schools for ALL children, not just those of the affluent. We should allow employers to create job with wages based on the economic value of the work performed, and we should strive to create a society where people value education, skill and responsibility.

 

[Lisa_N]

Thomas Sowell’s column, while not addressing minimum wage specifically does discuss the need for “menial labor” and points out that it would be a lot worse if no bedpans were emptied than if sociologists quit working for a year.

townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050612.shtml

Professor Sowell is definitely one of my favorite columnists. If you’ve not experienced one of his books I definitely recommend it.
He is African American and conservative but compassionate.

Lisa N

 

[jlw]

Do we LIVE on our gross wages, or do we LIVE on our NET wages??

One says that by raising the gross wage, we therefore increase the living (net) wage.

I say that by lowering the taxes on the gross wage, the living (net) wages increase. (oh yeah, and if payroll taxes are less, the employer now has capital freed up to pay for ANOTHER employee??)

 

[vern_humphrey]

jlw:

Do we LIVE on our gross wages, or do we LIVE on our NET wages??

One says that by raising the gross wage, we therefore increase the living (net) wage.

I say that by lowering the taxes on the gross wage, the living (net) wages increase. (oh yeah, and if payroll taxes are less, the employer now has capital freed up to pay for ANOTHER employee??)

By cutting taxes and clearing out all the ideologically-based obstacles that hamper businesses, we can grow an economy that will provide plenty for all.

We cannot tax ourselves into prosperity.

 

[jlw]

**Vern:**The people who tout the minimum wage mostly never ran a business

Yep.

**LisaN:**We also have a HUGE influx of illegals who are working under the table for less than the mandated minimum.

That’s ALOT of missed tax revenue ain’t it?? And the illegals are NETTING just as much as the legal worker at McDonald’s.

Philip: However, it’s worth noting the difference between this and the general, across the board tax cuts so beloved by the political right.

Yeah, those who succeed don’t deserve to keep what they earn. That’s justice. Look, I don’t mind the progressive tax structure (too much), but I don’t think we need to be taxed any more than 1/3 of our earnings. If 33% seems like an arbitrary number, is 37% of one’s earnings less arbitrary?? How about 40%? 51%??

Vern: If the cost of labor is greater than the value of that labor, there will be fewer jobs.

Just a fact. It also has to be mentioned that if other regulatory measures squeeze the margins on a small business, it isn’t necessarily the labor costs that force a business to close or move across state lines or across an ocean. Look at Michigan. The state legislators and governors sqeezed the auto manufacurers with environmental regulation in an already expensive unionized marketplace. The Democrats wanted to “blameBush” for “outsourcing”. Hardly! Jobs go to business climates that sensibly regulate, but allow businesses the room to operate, produce, employ, and profit.

ChrisR246: All buyers, whether they be buying labor or goods, whether they be big nasty corporations or a family buying groceries, look to “exploit” the supplier, if by exploit you mean they seek to pay the lowest amount possible. This is how a free economy works - buyers and sellers freely come to an agreement on the price paid for the thing offered. Government regulation, eg minimum wages or closed shops, interferes with and distorts that system.

Wow. That is just SPOT ON.

Fats are cheap foods, and cooking healthy foods is much more expensive, particularly if you don’t know what you’re doing or have less time.

Not true. Healthy foods are LESS expensive!! Now about the time issue…Maybe it is about time…maybe it is more about immediate gratification. Were are a middle class family and try to eat at home (healthier, less expensive) but sure loooove the drive-thru or microwave for the family when it has to be…

Lisa N: Unfortunately the poor nutrition is often a result of buying processed foods, snack foods, high fat, high salt and high calorie items. They are NOT cheap. What they are is tasty and easy, both of which characteristics appeal to the undiscriminating consumer.

Bingo.

Vern: You seem to take the position that “business” and businessmen are somehow of a different species than the rest of us and HAVE to create jobs.

Funny, but that seems to be the thought process of most liberals.

Vern: By overpricing our labor, we have SENT jobs to China and Mexico. By failing to educate the children of the poor, we have created generation after generation of children doomed to poverty.

Not only overpriced wages, but overregulated labor laws, overregulated benefit packages, overregulated land-use laws, overregulated environmental laws, overregulated…well, you get the picture. I am not decrying sound governmental oversight, but get the government involved, and you are sure asking for inefficiency and ineffectivness.

Continued…

 

[jlw]

Continued…

Quote:
History clearly shows that raising the minimum wage has not negatively impacted the economy. In the four years after the last minimum wage increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in over three decades. Nearly 11 million new jobs were added, at a pace of 232,000 per month. There were ten million new service industry jobs, including more than one and a half million retail jobs, of which nearly 600,000 were restaurant jobs.

It should be mentioned that the business climate of the late '90’s were unparalleled anywhere in history. Investors were willing to throw money into Dotcoms left and right. The tech marketplace was like assembly line in the early 1900’s. HUGE. Transformed everything. The '90’s had an overinflated dollar. “Peacetime” (Letting terrorists run around without a miltary check?) is “less expensive” and "more stable"and therefore saw lower oil prices.

I’m not knocking your (the Bishop’s) claim, I just think it is best to say that raising taxes and rasing the minimum wage CAN halt economic progress. It doesn’t halt it in it’s tracks, but it shows up a few fiscal quarters down the road.

Philip: Also, the issue of China (and by extension globalization in general) was raised. The answer is not to “race to the bottom” to match the labor standards of other countries, but to force them to rise to ours.

Agreed. Liberals blame US corporations. I blame foreign (and domestic) governments for their business and regulatory climates. We also have to consider the “state of the marketplace” in other countries too. A man earning three US dollars an hour in country X is doing quite nicely for himself given the cost of living in his country. It’s better than .50 cents a day, nothing at all?

Vern: Raising the minimum wage is a zero-sum game. While SOME people will draw a little more for their work, OTHER people will be blocked, unable to find jobs

Gosh, I seem to be quoting Vern alot. It’s just that he’s …right.

BLM_Oregon: Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Workers, 1891

May a suggest also a rereading of Pope John Paul The Great’s *Centesimus Annus *osjspm.org/cst/ca.htm

Lisa N: Until we solve the problem of all the illegals here who actually drive down the value of a man hour, we are just wasting time arguing about a minimum wage that isn’t being paid because it’s more than ‘the traffic will bear’ while there are people willing to take these jobs at the market value.

The elephant sitting in the room–for both political parties.

Thomas Sowell

froogle.google.com/froogle?q=books+by+Thomas+Sowell&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&sa=N&tab=ff&oi=froogler

Click and scroll. If inner cities listen to Sowell, not Jesse and Al, the world would be a much better place.

 

[vern_humphrey]

History clearly shows that raising the minimum wage has not negatively impacted the economy. In the four years after the last minimum wage increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in over three decades. Nearly 11 million new jobs were added, at a pace of 232,000 per month. There were ten million new service industry jobs, including more than one and a half million retail jobs, of which nearly 600,000 were restaurant jobs.

Hmmm – our inner cities are full of people who can’t get jobs. Here in Arkansas, we have whole counties with basically no jobs at all, outside of government.

And we have a flood of illegal immigrants working in under-the-table black market jobs.

That doesn’t look like “raising the minimum wage has not negatively impacted the economy.”

 

[Philip_P]

Regarding undocumented workers, naturally I think they should be paid a minimum wage like any other worker. Legalize, document them, and give them the full benefit (and burden) of the law. I’m no fan of the current undocumented worker situation, though where I and conservatives part company is that they’d like to legalize them and send them packing, whereas I’d like to legalize them and encourage them to stay and become part of the national fabric.

Also, I think the situation of undocumented workers makes a great counterargument to those who would rely on market forces alone. Illegal, and therefore beyond all laws save those of supply and deman, the plight of the illegals presents a study in the perils of relying on sheer economic logic, shorn of rules and regulations. Anyone here feel like trading their status as a legal worker for that of those who work here unprotected by the rule of law? Didn’t think so.

Regarding the point that increases wages too far will halt economic activity, of course it will. But reducing them too far will also do so, and may well trigger dangerous social instability as well. The trick, as with any economic decision, is to find the balance. No one is arguing that the minimum wage should be inceased to the point where drawbacks outweigh benefits. Yet several here seem to be arguing that the idea of a minimum wage, in itself, is a bad idea. But perhaps I’m just misunderstanding. Are you really saying that there should be NO minimum wage, or simply voicing a fear that it may be set too high? And if you really are arguing against the idea of ANY minimum wage, what would you have in its place? We are no longer, as has been pointed out, a Dickensian society, yet this very remark seems to overlook why that is - we have labor protections in place that never existed in Dickensian times. Progress is not inevitable, but the result of conscientious human action. If you remove worker protections, what would you put in its place to prevent us from reverting to the bad old days of open class warfare and the vicious exploitation of the many by the few?

 

[ChrisR246]

Philip P:

Also, I think the situation of undocumented workers makes a great counterargument to those who would rely on market forces alone. Illegal, and therefore beyond all laws save those of supply and deman, the plight of the illegals presents a study in the perils of relying on sheer economic logic, shorn of rules and regulations.

Not quite - there is an imbalance because the employers in these situations have the threat of government power only on their side.
Philip P:

The trick, as with any economic decision, is to find the balance.

Yes. And each individual has to be able to find that balance for themselves, for no one else can know and properly balance all the preferences of every individual.
Philip P:

Are you really saying that there should be NO minimum wage,

I am. At least not one mandated by the government. We can’t rely on the government to run bus service on time, why would we rely on it to have such control over the economy.

Here, to me, is the heart of the matter - the government, ultimately, has power because it keeps for itself a monopoly on the use of force and so can impose it’s will, regardless of right or wrong. Any time that power is available in a situation, opposing sides will be trying to use it to for their own benefit against their oppositio.

The economy, as one example, is too large, far reaching and complex to be directed by a few people. Allowing one side to use the government’s power to influence it invites imbalance. It would be far better for government to remove itself from the proceeding completely - supporting neither suppliers nor buyers in any situation.
Philip P:

And if you really are arguing against the idea of ANY minimum wage, what would you have in its place?

A completely open field, without the government favoring any “side”. The problem with the the “Dickensian” period everyone is bemoaning is not the “evilness” of the business owners. We all have flawed natures and always have. No, it was that the government was using it’s power on the side of owners - enforcing monopolies, breaking unions, granting land and business rights, developing regulations that favored some businesses, “grandfathering” exisiting businesses to protect them from competition, not protecting all property rights etc etc etc. Many of these things still go on and are as much a drag to our economy and a minimum wage is.