Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelchisari | Hacker News Reader

One of the arguments against raising the minimum wage is that it incentivizes automation and robot labor to replace it.

But I think the robot labor force is upon us no matter what, and delaying it by using extremely underpaid wage labor doesn't seem to be doing anyone any favors.

If a living wage forces automation, then it's better to force that and deal with that reality (with social programs, education, basic income, anything), that tilt at windmills.

Sometimes I wonder if people being on welfare and having 40 extra hours a week to figure out what they're doing with their life is better than people working 40 hours at a week at a stressful, useless "job"... and still being on welfare because it pays barely anything.

View on HN

The fundamental problem is the low market price of unskilled labor. A living wage is one a way to deal with it, along with social programs, education and basic income.

However living wages suffer from the problem that they only benefit people with jobs. Even if they didn't increase unemployment, I would not support them because I don't think a person deserves more than their employer is willing to pay. However, I do think that all people below a certain income should have their income supplemented by the government (what we call welfare in the UK/Aus/NZ, US welfare is much more complex).

I think one problem is that the left has encouraged people to think in terms of rights and justice, when the problems around poverty are really problems of redistribution and charity. Saying that you want to help poor people because they need help and can't provide enough income for themselves sounds arrogant, but it's the truth.

I generally agree. If a job is so close to being marginalized that it would be eliminated by an increase in the minimum, then the cost of that automation is already pretty close to replacing that job, anyway.

My pie-in-the-sky ideal would be if Corporate America (tm) decided that getting enough out of employees was better in the long run than getting the most out of them to make this quarter.

>One of the arguments against raising the minimum wage is that it incentivizes automation and robot labor to replace it.

This argument was conceived precisely so wages could be pressured downward. It becomes patently obvious when you dig a little into the writings by economists who make these predictions - they are typically absolutely clueless about technology.

> One of the arguments against raising the minimum wage is that it incentivizes automation and robot labor to replace it.

I really have to ask at what point people started thinking that reducing total productivity in order to increase the supply of menial toil is a good idea.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com