Abolish Minimum Wage

I have an analogy for all of you here: If the government set the price of an orange to 10 dollars(or equivalent local currency) what do you think would happen?(It relates to minimum wage because it's price fixing.)




You seem to be under the impression that there are tons of jobs that pay minimum wage or lower. As I've already pointed out only 3% of workers get paid minimum wage or less(in the US). Do you believe that if we got rid of it that there would be suddenly much more people that would be paid a lower wage? and why?

3% is still a lot mate. That's at least millions of jobs (in the US).
I do believe so, yes. That 3% you keep banging on about would increase, it doesn't matter if it's only by 1 percent, that still means hundreds of thousands more people being paid minimum, or less than minimum wage.

Why? Organizations are there to seek profit, no matter what. Wages and salaries are just expenses for them. Without regulations that bounds them from paying people cheaply, they'd exploit employees and gain even more profit.

Yes... and,so, therefor,but? Your point being? I already said the approximate number in a previous post. Certainly ~3.5 million is a large number but, the point was comparing it to the actual number of jobs which is much higher. Also of those 3.5 million over 90% are people under 25. Is it a mystery to you that a lot of young people start out making minimum wage or below? Do you imagine that they will stay at minimum wage or below forever?

Employers hire people based on education and experience. The more one has of both of those traits the higher wage they can demand and consequently the less of those you have the the less able you are to demand high wages. jobs that pay minimum wage or less are jobs that most everybody can do. You need little education or experience to do such jobs. The point being that since most people can do them there is a huge supply and consequently low wages as per supply and demand.



If this were the case then why isn't it happening now? There is nothing stopping all companies from paying their workers minimum wage, so then why is it only 3% percent of workers make minimum wage or less? Why isn't it 50% or 75% or 100% for that matter?

For the UK, the Resolution Foundation found that latest figures suggest 20% of workers earn less than a living wage which, as I explained earlier, is the amount legally recognised as the minimum required to be able live on. I couldn't find figures at a glance for minimum wage, but that so many people can't even afford food and shelter without government support is worrying enough in itself.
Employers may be, on mode, offering employees above minimum wage, but it would seem that the difference is so much as to be pretty negligible to the standard of living.




Yeah admittedly I didn't phrase that very well. Traditionally, British Concervatives lower the otherwise increased taxes on the excessively rich, and distribute the difference as higher tax among the working classes. Whether that's out of fairness or out of protecting their friends', their lobbyists' and their personal wealth is technically up to conjecture...
When I say that we pay more for imports it's not because imports cost more individually, but that there are FAR more goods that we just don't have room to manufacture locally, or don't have the resources to produce on the first place. Small country + higher population density = more impoted goods, so many more things are much more expensive, particularly at the consumer level.
I didn't mean to say that high energy prices directly increase taxes, but they certainly do increase living costs exponentially. That said, with international/European taxes on energy providers being inconvenient, it wouldn't surprise me if their Eton chums in government found a way to redistribute tax costs among the middle and working classes lol




I couldn't tell you, but it makes me pretty sad that the excessively rich are willing let millions suffer hunger, poverty and homelessness that they might amass yet more static wealth that will never be invested or go back into the economy. Oh the joys of 'closed-market capitalism'.




Well, you could put a higher tax on 'static' income (e.g. salaries and bonuses that will go into a bank account and never see the light of day) above a certain amount in only the very richest percentage of the population, such as that their standard of living will not be affected whatsoever, make sure to apply and enforce strict money laundering laws, and distribute it to those below the poverty line. A handful of people lose <1% more income, millions of people benefit from a higher standard of living. Of course, that would be socialist, and socialism's inherently evil and makes important, self-entitled rich people move to a different country.

On that note, perhaps a "world government" discussion would be fun lol

What is a living wage? enough to live on? but then what's that? how much is enough?



Well it would be nice so that income wasn't taxed at all but that would require getting rid of a lot of governmental expenses.



LOL and you think we manufacture tons of stuff over here? We get most of our consumer goods from outside our own country yet according to you we pay less.



I always get a kick when companies are taxed. Do walls pay taxes? Do warehouses pay taxes? Do skyscrapers pay taxes? No people pay taxes. If you tax a company there are 3 groups that can pay it. The owners, the employee's and/or the consumers. obviously the owners aren't going to want to bear any of the burden so it fall's to the employee's in the form of not getting paid as much as they might have otherwise been and/or it goes to the consumers in the form of higher prices.




Well your being misled if that is what you think. People can only make money through providing things that people want or being part of a company that does so. If they didn't then they would not be excessively rich.

As a legally recognised figure, it's £7.65 outside of London, and £8.80 inside London. This is the amount required to live in the mean rent of lowest bracket cost accomodation, on lowest standard energy bills, mean price lowest bracket food, and with minimal/no luxuries.



Yeah in the current iteration of our capitalist economic market such a set-up just isn't feasible. Not even corporations and the hyper-rich would want there to be NO taxes, since then there'd be no government control over consumers and tax-payers for them to lobby.



Well seeing as the USA sets the standard for cost of a bunch of raw materials in dollars, and has enough buying and selling power to intimidate any country they trade with, yes you do pay less than we do for imported goods. Especially fuel and, by extension, energy. You only have to compare the price of most goods in the two countries to see that. Admittedly though, there are certain areas of higher cost than British average, seeing as the USA covers such a vast area, but these are generally cities, and if you compare them to the price of goods in London it's practically laughable.



You are aware that individuals can pay for personal goods and services through company accounts, right...? If companies weren't taxed, everyone could just set up a company and never directly assume any personal income, and then nobody would ever have to be taxed. If you don't want companies to be taxed, don't allow there to be company accounts. A wall doesn't have a bank account, after all.

Not that this stops CEOs and such getting away with laundering money and dodging taxes through backdoor deals utilising their company accounts, particularly those held overseas (global government? anyone? ;D)

Besides, if you're the owner of a dog, and it takes a crap on the street, YOU are the one who has to clean it up. You're the one who has to pay for its food, and its vet bills and its toys and bed and collar. If you want to own something and reap the benefits of it, you should have to be responsible for the cost of its upkeep. The same is true of a bicycle, or a car, or a wall, warehouse or skyscraper. And some of these are things you're even taxed for.



Maybe having some desire to see greater human compassion is immature of me, but you're even more naiive then I am if you think every rich person (particularly the very, very rich) got rich by playing fair and working hard. They do it by cheating the system, dodging taxes, and lobbying government officials.

As an example, do your American hospitals WANT to buy standard biros that cost hundreds of dollars each? No, but they have to because some rich CEO was a buddy to a government official, and had a law passed that this hospital could only buy from ONE supplier for their office and medical supplies, meaning the supplier can charge WHATEVER THEY LIKE and the hospital has no choice but to pass these costs on to their patients. Which is also why your medical bills are so expensive.
And this is not a one-of-a-kind example, it's common practice among those to whom I keep referring as the "excessively rich". In fact, oil company-lobbied petrodollar warfare is even scarier than the system of blackmail in your healthcare, since we now know that corporations are willing to defend their wealth with outright war. And yet so many still take the side of good old fashioned American "free-market" capitalism. There is no free market now, so the rules of supply and demand just don't apply in the same way. It's a small pond, and the big fish are running out of little ones to snack on. How long before they start gnawing the algae on the bed?


Rant over. Sorry for going off-topic. I've got the taste of bile in my mouth now too. I'm taking a break; this topic makes me anxious.

Being legally recognized means nothing. How much tax's are there, and not just sales tax but taxes for all the things before the product's even get to the shelf. I'll give you an example from over here: fuel is taxed at ~80%. I pay about 3 Dollars per gallon so the government gets ~80% of that. Another thing to look for would be this: Over here ethanol is subsidies'd which means that the price of corn goes up as well as the price of some meat. I did find an article that said that your living wage after tax was comparable to the minimum wage before tax.



I meant just the income tax not all tax.



Your talking mostly about tariff's and customs. Those are things that the government could do something about since they control them.



Oh if only. There would still be sales tax and no matter where you put your money it matter's where you got it. The less tax the government takes the better. Say I went out and created a fake company just so I could put all my money there how would I be able to pay no tax's? Even if the company I work for put my paycheck straight into my fake company account I still have to report that to the government since that's income. No matter where it is as long as there's an income tax one has to report their income. Has nothing to do with companies being taxed since that is about taxing profits.



I agree that one needs to take care of their property but, tax's are not upkeep.



Not just any random person can lobby the government. To get rich enough to Lobby the government one still has to produce something that others want. Lets not go around thinking that every company lobby's the government. Of the companies that exist only a handful do so. There are some corporations that get really powerful like that but, the government is the vehicle for that power and thus it is the government that needs to stop.

Fine, I get your point. Doesn't change the fact that it won't increase once it's abolished though.

I'm not emphasising on people being paid minimum wage here. As I said from the start, what is the point in having 0% unemployment and reduce the overall average standard of living?

Why do you think the standard of living would go down? It would go up for those who don't currently have jobs. As for the people that have jobs now it's not as if companies are going to lower everyone's wage if you abolish minimum wage. Yes once you get rid of it there would be people that would start out lower but that's just it. It's a starting place, we all start somewhere and then we move up from there. Remember the people at the bottom are almost all young people, and young people for the most part start out at the bottom. That's not where they finish.

It's all well thought and presented well your point, but do please provide an example of a developed country where their average GDP is higher than average of other developed countries without implementing any minimum wages.

EDIT: And please do not use countries such as Luxembourg or Singapore, because their size can't be compared to countries like the US or Australia.

First of all lets keep in mind that minimum wage isn't the only thing that effects the standard of living. Even in the countries you mentioned that they don't have minimum wage isn't necessarily the sole reason they may be prosperous.

Second of all why would the size of the country matter? Are you implying that people behave differently the higher the population is and thus need different government policy's to guide them? If so I'm curious whats the cut off for that? 50 million? 100 million? 500 million?

I'm not gonna answer your question until you answer mine. Don't dodge my question and counter it with another.

I might remind you that there are no major countries that don't have a minimum wage. In fact I could count the number of countries without minimum wage law's of some kind or another on one hand. There all small. Either city states or small islands. I could point to Hong kong before the Chinese took over or the US during the 19th century. Both did not have any minimum wage laws at the time yet they thrived. Now as I stated before not having any minimum wage law's was not the sole reason for their success.

You mentioned Australia and the United States. Lets compare shall we? In arguments about minimum wage Australia is often brought up because it has a lower unemployment figure compared to the US yet a much higher minimum wage. Thing is most everything there costs 20% - 50% more than in the States. This is partly because of the much higher minimum wage.

If you make labor artificially more expensive than it otherwise would be(that's the point of the minimum wage law otherwise it has no meaning) than something else has to give. I know there are plenty of people out there that think companies have tons of money just lying around but most don't. If you raise the cost of labor then they will have to cut cost's somewhere else or charge more for their product/s. They tend to do a bit of both.

There you go.



They are indeed. Reducing the minimum wage does not automatically reduce the price of the goods though, during the transition period there will be millions of people suffering.

Look, I'm bored with this, so this will be my last post. Do you really think the idea of abolishing minimum wages never crossed any treasurer's mind, like, not even once? They are the expert of economics. Governments keep minimum wage law in place for a reason. They do much more thinking about the economy of the country than you do, they have much more data to consider their decisions. I'm not saying you are wrong, but if we're talking about a matter where hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, I don't dare making such a big change where the results are not even clear. So does the government I assume, considering the fact that none of the big economical superpowers have no minimum wage law.

I only paid so much attention in Macro and Microeconomics so I don't have any solution (not like I give a fuck anyway). It was a good discussion though.

So because everyone does it that makes it right? Chee whiz if everyone jumps off a cliff are you going to follow?



So they should continue suffering forever when it could be stopped even if it would mean some short term pain? Keep in mind that the minimum wage worker over there gets a deal sure but it's not as if the people above minimum wage got that same deal when they raised it. People were talking about raising the minimum wage over here in the states to 15 dollars an hour a few months ago. If that were to happen do you think the people that currently make above that would also get a substantial raise? The price of their goods and services would go up though. Meaning that they would be less off at the expense of the minimum wage worker who would be better off.



The treasurer didn't make the law, politicians made the law as they do all laws. Do you believe that they are economics experts? Or that they are infallible?



Yeah because they are democracies for the most part and in democracies the majority wins whether they are right or not is another story. In this case the majority are the employee's.



I doubt they do to much thinking about the economy. If they did that much thinking about it why don't they foresee things that will happen in the future. Take for example the recession of 2008(and ongoing) they didn't see that coming. At the time they all thought it was great and home prices would skyrocket forever. I don't know about you but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the price of homes will not skyrocket forever.



Well maybe you should pay more attention and not just blithely believe whatever the government tells you.



Now this is the same sort of thing devsonfire was suggesting. That where you are in the world effects how people behave and thus different government policy's are needed. or that the population of a country somehow effects the way people behave and thus different government policy's are needed. I humbly disagree with that, people are generally self interested and thus behave accordingly.

Now you're just being a conspiracy freak. And please don't say I should study Macro, I study what I want to study.

How does price of sky rocketing of houses do anything with the crisis? The crisis was caused by BANKS lending easy credits to people. Indeed, the price did rise, but the banks are the main cause of the crisis, not the governments. Governments did make a mistake I admit, but they're not the main cause of the crisis.

Treasurer didn't make the law, but if he thinks a minimum wage is not necessary, or in fact, harm the economy of the country, it would be abolished with ease.

You're sounding like someone who doesn't trust your own government. I don't know where you are, where you live, but I regretted spending so much time researching and arguing to people who's actually a conspiracy freak. I'm done. Good luck studying stuff that won't get you anywhere unless you're a politician.

The point is that any government policy can be compared to things in other countries and to things that have happened in the past. As with anything do you judge it based on the results or that if they simply ment well? There's an old saying that I like: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Now I'm not a religious person but I think it a good saying.



Free health care applies to everybody. Tax's apply to everybody. The price of their goods and services applies to everybody. Minimum wage doesn't apply to everybody.