clocker bob wrote:matthew wrote:Bob, of course I think unjust compensation is wrong.
But that contradicts what you said earlier. You said that the minimum wage should be $0.00. You said that the government should not interfere with the market's ability to dictate wages. Now you admit that there is such a thing as 'unjust compensation'. Okay-define it. Is it $1 anhour?
Ok I read this much and just beat my head against the wall for bit. All better now.
Bob......would you please stop with this "magical mystical thinking", please?..........you have to leave such decisions up to employers. An ethical employer will compensate both according to market value, and in turn people will want to come to work for them. Making some bureaucratic fiat about such a relative, mutable economic reality is foolish and detrimental to a society. As far as those employers who compensate way below market value (which is what an unjust wage is, to answer your question)....well....leave it up to the market; most people except mostly losers who have closed the doors on themselves jobwise will in turn gravitate away from such employers and their jobs.
Suppose some lettuce farmer in Arizona can bribe some border agents to let 100 Mexicans cross the border every day to pick his lettuce for $1 an hour. Suppose he can find some poor Americans to do it for $3 an hour. Whose side are you on in this situation, matthew? The workers or the farmer? If you are on the farmer's side, then tell me how low the wage must drop for you to take the workers' side. If you are on the workers' side, then tell me who will act upon your complaint that the workers are unjustly compensated, if not the government? So you see, by admitting that unjust compensation is wrong, you are admitting that a minimum wage law is necessary.
I'd haul the Mexicans back to Mexico, tell them to enter the country legally next time, and arrest the farmer and border patrol agents. The Mexicans are here illegally and thus are not eligible for employment, and the fuzz and the farmer are crooks. Now what was your point?
matthew wrote:And as for a person who attempts to live comfortably on an income which does not not permit such, well........GO GET SOME BETTER OR MORE DESIRABLE JOB SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS THEN!
This is not an answer to my question. I didn't say that people didn't have the chance to elevate themselves out of a minimum wage job.
So we can agree that they actually do have a chance, given a little ambition right?
I said there will always be a wide sector of minimum wage labor in this country, some staffed by people who do the work for a short time...
As it should be in most cases since such jobs are not meant for supporting one's self. Are you going to play a 45 year old with a wife and three kids who is a crappy worker 22 and change per hour 40 hours per week to scoop ice cream cones at Baskin Robbins while you pay a 16 year old who is much more industrious $7.50 per hour? I'd walk if I were that kid.
..some for a long time, but in either case, there is a population of people staffing these jobs. although not the same people, month in and month out. For those people, while they hold those jobs, are they deserving of a living wage or not?
They are deserving of whatever the market says their job is worth. We can both agree that they have an opportunity to advance themselves and move on, and in the event that they fall on genuine hardship, there are charitable people and institutions who will always be there.
You see, your theory that menial labor must be undercompensated
No. I have not said that. I've only said that menial jobs by legitimate employers generally are worth whatever the market says they are worth, which is not a lot in our economy.
...to provide an incentive for people to leave menial labor is corrupt.
That's just a coincidental effect of economic realities. You wanna alter reality? Go ahead and try....the market will correct you in the end, and in the end.
You are imposing a hypothetical on the people in those jobs, and that is- you are stealing from them now, in the mistaken assumption that your tough attitiude on the pay scale of the working poor will make them better themselves. How dare you?
Oh horseshit
It is not your right to cheat them in the present because you have the smug attitude that you can propel them into your hypothetical future by doing so. You must pay them what they are worth to their employer today.
And all ethical legitimate employers will compensate them according to the market value of their job.
Employers love this myth that their menial workforce is a transient workforce, so therefore, depressed wages are acceptable.
Generally it is a transient workforce because.......once again......THAT IS THE MARKET WORKING. The market says that most people who work such jobs don't stick around long- they are mostly teenagers/young adults, adults who lack basic job skills, and retired adults who want some supplemental income (my father is one example). The only people who flip burgers at McDonald's or pump gas for 20 years and try to make ends meet from such jobs are people with no ambition.
matthew wrote:Let me elaborate a little bit about why I don't believe in an ABSOLUTE STANDARD WAGE. Essentially it is because both the cost of living and the cost of running a business varies a great deal depending upon where you are, and strictly for businesses.
No kidding. That's why it's a state issue. You're hiding from your original statement again- why is matthew wauck, who wrote that the minimum wage should be $0.00, telling me the that it is difficult to make a minimum wage fit the region or the industry? You say make it $0.00. That's easy to fit into any jobmarket or region of the country.
Not only is it easy and non-invasive, it's a hell of alot more realistic than setting a wage standard according to some statistical abstraction!
I think you need to read between the lines of what I mean when I say eliminate the minimum wage/set it at $0.00. That brain of yours seems to be a little overworked. No offense.