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Comment by baggy_trough | Hacker News Reader

This is very good news for teenagers and the low skilled.

Everyone deserves a living wage

When I was in high school and part-time shelving books at the local town library, no I didn't. Not for that work. Pocket money for a teenager was about the right amount of pay.

Not everyone is a single mother trying to make ends meet for her two children. We should not make economic policy as if they are.

"So why don't we take care of them?" Single mothers trying to make ends meet have access to a wide array of social programs already. We are already not abandoning them to the tender mercies of minimum wage and nothing else.

Sure, but the majority of people with jobs need them to survive. I'm happy that wasn't an issue for you in high school though.

Exceptions to minimum wage laws already exist for the case you mentioned, so there is no issue with raising the federal minimum wage to account for the increased cost of living for those that depend on it for this.

> When I was in high school and part-time

> Not everyone is a single mother trying to make ends meet

In the meantime, student loans are at an all time high!

Whether or not you had college paid for by somebody else who saved or even if you didn't need to go; Teenagers need more than pocket money, afterall, in 2 years they will, for the median, be committing to loan terms that will take 10+ years to pay off, if they ever do.

Isn't that an argument for addressing the costs of tuition, and not an argument for artificially setting the value of labor?

Not in isolation. A 16 year old's upcoming expenses are a car, car insurance, tuition, housing, food, and more... And if possible should be contributing to a retirement account as well.

A 16 year old also may not have a college opportunity and may decide to go straight to work, may decide to go straight to having a family with a high school sweetheart. At that point, the 16-18 year old needs a liveable wage too.

No, 16-year-olds should not be contributing to retirement accounts. The return on investment in such an account will be far less than the return from investing that money in increasing their own human capital. This could be by buying good books to read, buying a computer to learn to program on, or paying for movie tickets to go out on a date with someone who may be their future spouse.

Sounds nice on a bumper sticker but not really a point of view that stands up to scrutiny.

Just to be clear, the counterpoint you support is: "Some people don't deserve a living wage."

But not every job has to provide it. Teenager working part time at McDonalds does not have to earn $100k, they just need to earn enough to buy them new pair of jeans, or few beers for Saturday night party. It is up to them to eventually move from such low skill, low pay jobs to an actual career.

You've built a man out of straw, and now brag that you managed to topple it.

> they just need to earn enough to buy them new pair of jeans, or few beers for Saturday night party.

It would be nice if they could pay for a semester or 2 (or 8) of college instead of using student loans.

You also assume that their parents are able to put healthy food on the table every night; which statistically, doesn't hold for 100% of Americans.

Well that's blatantly false. Everyone willing to minimally contribute to society should have an expectation of a living wage.

Able bodied people that choose to do nothing deserve to receive nothing.

I wish more people understood this.

Understood what? Their point is a bad faith argument and a misunderstanding of who makes low wages.

It's more nuanced than this, in my view. It's not just "high minimum wage bad for teenagers!"

There are a lot of reasons for decreased teenage employment:

- Older employees who should be retired hanging on to jobs longer because they can't afford retirement

- Students finding part time work an inferior return on investment compared to college preparation and other resume-building activities like volunteer work

- College costing so much that high school summer jobs can't possibly pay for a significant fraction of it, essentially making it a less time efficient option than just using future wages to pay for it (loans)

- Lengthened academic years with shorter summers

https://www.apnews.com/66a5d6cade1743fb897aad56e300c99c

I do think that it might make sense to have a lower teenage minimum wage than the normal adult minimum wage. I personally don't assume that a low minimum wage is good for low-skill employees, that just doesn't add up to me.

The inability to pay a living wage equates to all of us not paying the real cost of a good or service.

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