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No, absolutely not. In some sense, maybe it's a nice wish. But you can't change economic reality with laws & threats of violence.

The minimum wage is always zero.

Businesses are not charities that can hire people at a loss. Businesses give people access to productive capital & resources they otherwise might not have access to, which does make people more productive. But people still have produce more value for others than they are paid, otherwise they are an economic drain on the business, which makes everything unsustainable.

So if you set a minimum rate of pay that allows people to purchase X amount of stuff, anyone who is not productive enough to justify that amount of compensation (generally the poorest & least skilled) will be unemployable. People who cannot be employed at an economically sustainable rate of pay can not learn & gain the experience needed to earn more. Setting the lower bound for pay rates very high, is like removing all the lower rungs on the economic ladder.

Your policy built with nice sounding intentions turns life into hell for the very people you claim to want to help.

And unfortunately the govt tends to actually want a voting block trapped in poverty with just these sorts of policies so they can be easily controlled & manipulated & used as a social talking point, so there are actually people who work to encourage this ignorance.

Toshi 1y ago

The economic reality is that if your business is not generating enough revenue to pay your employees properly, the market is telling you that your product or service is shit.

You can't expect people to work for you for less than they need to live a decent life.

Also, no one was talking about a law. Not me, not the post you shared. But you are an example of why laws are needed to protect workers.

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Discussion

Jeff Swann 1y ago

But people do take low paying jobs all the time, why do you think that is? Maybe because some money is better than no money? And the sort of people who promote economically retarded ideas always want those ideas imposed with force.

The solution to rising living costs & poor job options, is less govt spending (no more bailouts, corp subsidies, & interest rate controls) & fewer taxes & laws restricting bussiness activity. Less govt spending means less inflation, & less restriction on business activity will mean more businesses get created & have to compete for employees. More options raise pay & working conditions.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

You should try actually engaging with the ideas & the explanation I have laid out instead of just implying that I'm evil. If you really care about helping people you have to let go of ideas that do tremendous harm first. The way to get to a place where most people have access to comfortable good paying jobs & low living costs has nothing to do with demanding that people be paid better. Underlying monetary & regulatory conditions have to be changed.