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Comment by driverdan | Hacker News Reader

> If you can't pay a basic living wage

Stop right there. What about people who don't need a basic living wage, like students who still live with their parents? Why should they be pushed out of the market?

I worked in high school, starting when I was 16. It was minimum wage. Without that job I wouldn't have been able to afford a car (necessary where I lived), travel to Greece and Italy, and have my own spending money. I also gained a lot of real world experience.

Employers should pay what the position is worth. Why should people like you have the right to tell people like me that we can't willingly work?

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This is the key point. There are people who aren't trying to support a family as a sole wage earner.[1] If you raise the minimum wage, those jobs go away.

[1]https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

> What about people who don't need a basic living wage, like students who still live with their parents? Why should they be pushed out of the market?

Part time work. You can work 15-25 hours a week at the higher minimum wage while having time to study or deal with other things. A proper minimum wage should be the amount for a worker to live on after working 40 hours a week. If an employee can not make enough to live in that area (after working for 40 hours), the employer should not be there and is taking advantage of the employees.

So the less fortunate who are forced to rely on these basic jobs should live below poverty, so you can enjoy some extra cash to travel internationally?

The reality is, in modern America the percentage of people relying on these jobs as their sole source of income is much larger than the highschoolers looking to make some extra cash. We shouldn't sacrifice the masses to enable the few to maintain an optional job, in my opinion.

Do you have a source for that claim?

You raise an interesting point, but I am honestly more concerned with people who would otherwise starve or be homeless rather than students who would not be able to backpack around Europe for a summer. Minimum wage (and other worker protections) are aimed at protecting those who literally have no other options.

> Why should people like you have the right to tell people like me that we can't willingly work?

This isn't personal, I as a member of this society have a right to make my point that the powerful shouldn't exploit the powerless. Not that I'm calling you a trust fund kid, but this is the same argument you hear from people who are sitting on inherited wealth, and appeal to "natural rights" to keep the evil tax man from taking anything away from what is rightfully theirs. Rightfully theirs, by birth alone, mind you. Think for a minute about the opposite end of the spectrum, people born into abject poverty. They have a right to a dignified life, with a job that pays them enough to survive, rather than having to beg for whatever Johnny Moneybags decides to toss into the street from the window of his Rolls.

>I am honestly more concerned with people who would otherwise starve or be homeless rather than students who would not be able to backpack around Europe for a summer.

Okay, I worked part time from the end of high school through college. I didn't go backpacking, I just graduated with a smaller student loan balance. Is that a noble enough goal for it to matter if jobs are available?

My general feeling is that if people want jobs and can't find them, that's an economic problem worth considering, even if they'll have food without it.

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