“Higher Minimum Wage May Have Losers” (nytimes) is kind of fun. Economists and the New York Times editors have figured out that when workers are expensive, employers try to hire only the most energetic and productive. (SSDI for everyone else!)
- MIT professor studies high-wage retailers (2015 post on how higher wage retailers actually spend less on labor overall)
- Caveman Economics: Will the next rounds of higher minimum wages cause massive unemployment? (an earlier-in-2015 posting where I conjectured that if minimum wages are high only the most productive Americans would have jobs and said “We will also need a word to describe what happens when a business goes from a large group of low-paid workers to a small group of gung-ho moderately paid workers. My vote: ‘The business has been Costcoed’.”)
- “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage” (having a child can pay a lot more per hour than any of the proposed minimum wages)
I submit that worker productivity is a social construct and using such limited measures fails to qualify the true and holistic value of a person. Clearly, the only reasonable solution is to curtail the “gung-ho” know-it-all boss’ pets and put everyone on equal footings regardless of their “merits.”
The word “may” in that headline is important to remember. However, the same statement can be said about any change to government policies – they all have winners and losers.
Isn’t automation more sure of success and ultimately a lot cheaper for employers? Starbucks is gradually training us all to order via a smartphone app, for example.
@Dingus: have you ever considered a career as a union boss?
Thomas Sowell has been pointing out for many years that – ‘What job offer, at what pay rate, someone wants to accept has been taken out of their hands by minimum wage laws’. What a difficult concept to grasp!
@billg: Grand idea, unfortunately my life is already just too full. The rights of the of the mosquito larvae don’t protect themselves!