Minimum Wage

As you all probably know the minimum wage was recently increased by $.75 per hour bringing it up to $7.25 per hour. This is always a good topic of discussion in a political forum.

Here is the opener question. What should the minimum wage be and why?

I will start it off with the old tired arguments to get them out of the way.

Position of the Right:

There should be no minimum wage since a free marketplace will value labor based on supply and demand. The government needs to stay out of business since any minimum wage is just artificial and was created because liberal unions have pegged many of their rates to the minimum wage and raising the minimum wage is a method Dems use to pay back the Unions. Any minimum wage is an artificial rate that is just passed on to consumers and costs jobs at the bottom of the ladder. The minimum wage is primarily used for entry level positions and not intended to be a living wage.

Anyone who is for a minimum wage is anti-free market, anti-American, and is simply ignorant.

Position of the Left:

Without the minimum wage businesses would have us all working for 25 cents per hour. Supply and demand does not work. No one can pay their bills (food, housing, transportation), especially health care on the minimum wage. The minimum wage should be radically higher than $7.25 per hour.

Anyone who is against a minimum wage is evil, hates the poor, is selfish, and is simply ignorant.

I am certain that each of us has anecdotal stories that supports our position.

Did I get it right? Where am I wrong? What did I miss? Who is right? How do you refute the arguments of those you disagree with? WHAT SHOULD THE MINIMUM WAGE BE AND WHY?????

Jim Babcock said:

As you all probably know the minimum wage was recently increased by $.75 per hour bringing it up to $7.25 per hour. This is always a good topic of discussion in a political forum.

Here is the opener question. What should the minimum wage be and why?

I will start it off with the old tired arguments to get them out of the way.

Position of the Right:

There should be no minimum wage since a free marketplace will value labor based on supply and demand. The government needs to stay out of business since any minimum wage is just artificial and was created because liberal unions have pegged many of their rates to the minimum wage and raising the minimum wage is a method Dems use to pay back the Unions. Any minimum wage is an artificial rate that is just passed on to consumers and costs jobs at the bottom of the ladder. The minimum wage is primarily used for entry level positions and not intended to be a living wage.

Anyone who is for a minimum wage is anti-free market, anti-American, and is simply ignorant.

Position of the Left:

Without the minimum wage businesses would have us all working for 25 cents per hour. Supply and demand does not work. No one can pay their bills (food, housing, transportation), especially health care on the minimum wage. The minimum wage should be radically higher than $7.25 per hour.

Anyone who is against a minimum wage is evil, hates the poor, is selfish, and is simply ignorant.

I am certain that each of us has anecdotal stories that supports our position.

Did I get it right? Where am I wrong? What did I miss? Who is right? How do you refute the arguments of those you disagree with? WHAT SHOULD THE MINIMUM WAGE BE AND WHY?????

Back in the day when I owned a commercial dental lab..we fixed our rates based upon what the Dentist would pay..compared to what he was paying elsware. Competition permitted the Dr to choose the best lab for his practice scope. If you tried to *undercut* the competition...2 things would happen....one..you'd attract the dentist only out to make a profit...increasing your output but not your profit and/or you would inferiate the local associations with unfair pricing practices and you would feal the heat and you would be labeled a shoddy outfit. No one would expect quality prosthetics for sucha low price.

The same principal works with a minimum wage. If a business is forced to have to pay his entry emplyees a certain wage..he may have to let them go entirely and add that employees duties to the more senior employee. Trying to be competitive he will be foreced by the minimum wage law to limit his staff or he will have to limit his product. Limiting his product means he loses business. do that...and the whole thing ends in a trip in a U-Haul.

Labor is a commodity and it's cost rises and lowers with supply and demand. Unfortunately, the business community has a history of manipulating law and immigration policy to create an over-supply of labor and force wages down. For example, we have far more immigration (legal and immigration) than our national infrastructure can sustain. Blue collar wages have been lowered by our government's failure to maintain sovereign border control. White collar wages have been lowered by businesses who set up vast training infrastructures on the South Asian subcontinent an who have imported H1B workers by hundreds of thousands.

Since the country was founded by "we the people" for mutual defense and prosperity, it is highly disconcerting to see that we the people consists of you, me, and 400,000 cheap people who have been brought here to do our jobs. Of course, we can all save money by foregoing deodorant and air condition like the H1B people, but trust me the country will begin to smell really bad. The turnover specialists and painters at our apartment complex are already putting vapo-rub coroner-style on their noses and wearing respirators to work in the H1B apartments. :S

I think we have a public interest in maintaining border integrity, regulating immigration levels for the comfort of current citizens, and having a minimum wage to ensure that workers can survive without resorting to criminal behavior or violent revolution.

High enough to preclude the labor unions from having an overly valid reason to exist!