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Comment by lumb63 | Hacker News Reader

Consider the contrary idea from Thomas Sowell: “ Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.”

How many workers would work for less than a living wage and are prevented from doing so by minimum wage laws and instead denied jobs?

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I often think about this in the context of the homelessness problem. Homeless people are often kind of bored during the day and spend most of the time just loitering and hanging out. If they had the option of doing something productive during the day, it would be a win-win-win. They would have something to do and a bit of extra cash to spend, someone gets cheap labor, and they get off the streets during the day. Perhaps this could even be leg up into an actual job and career?

There's no way to paint this as anything other than blatant extortion - just like prison labor. But at the same time it's a bit weird to me that we kind of set societal speed limits "unless you are providing at least $15/hr in value to society you are a ward of the state".

But I think an important caveat to Sowell's argument is that is he is kind of describing the intent of minimum wage. It's a tool aimed at labor monopsony and one of the purposes of minimum wage is to intentionally thin out the supply of low wage labor from the bottom. It was never about benefiting people making $0. It was about removing competition amongst the people making $15.

Desperate people with no leverage against their potential employers? There are a lot of them in this country.

I can point you to hundreds of thousands of people risking their lives to cross the southern border for exactly that opportunity.

Who are these people and why are they willing to work for a wage they by definition literally can't afford to work for?

The argument could be made around required PPE as well. There are people willing to work without it, why aren't we jumping on that opportunity? Could probably employe another person or three if we didn't pay for PPE for the worksite.

There are people that aren’t working in order to pay their living expenses. Think young adults, students, or retired folks picking up a side gig to pass time.

Should anyone under 20 and over 65 should have a different minimum wage? Is it really that much of a shame that seniors can't find jobs to pass the time? Assuming they don't need the money there are other options there, like volunteering. I'm also wondering why college students, who are famously short of cash, should be considered unworthy of a living wage just because of their age and because some of them live with their parents. Should employees be forced to prove they really need the money before they can have a living wage?

The reality is that minimum wage jobs will sink to whatever level they can get away with, forcing everyone who works at that minimum wage level to put up with the new decreased wage.

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