Actual minimum wage is ZERO.....Tha comes from NOT working.
Personal minimum wage is the wage of whatever job you accept. If you want more, then apply for the higher paying job. If you aren’t qualified, then get more education and qualify yourself...Don’t look for a handout....
There needs to be something in place of the minimum wage that prevents what in business law are called “unconscionable” acts.
Unscrupulous businesses would (and do) have no problem with using slave labor, even in the US. And from the level of basic slavery, there are any number of coercive and repugnant means of semi-slavery that have been broadly embraced over the years.
A common one, for example (and not limited to the US), is to get foreign workers and illegal aliens, then confiscate their passports, refusing to return them and threatening to have them deported unless they work for a fraction of their value.
Even more common are kickbacks, in which employment is only offered if they will agree to return most of their pay for low value business provided things, like “rent” for concrete walls and corrugated tin roof over dirt floors, and “food” that is just rice and beans.
Every year, hundreds of businesses get small fines for such abuses. A tiny fraction of the money they make from such schemes.
Because the US keeps tightening its labor laws, despite the bitter opposition of such businesses, in recent years many corporations have taken to outsourcing, on the grounds that since they cannot get extremely cheap labor here, they will get it elsewhere, and sell their goods here.
But even that is not enough, because they resent having to pay shipping costs. So the big push, sponsored by none other than the multinational corporation controlled US Chamber of Commerce, is to have pseudo-open borders, or at least amnesty, not really for the existing illegal aliens, but because they know it will bring in a huge new crop of illegal aliens.
They absolutely do not want legal aliens that become citizens, because then they could demand fair wages. They want more illegal aliens they can cheat.
There are a lot of real scum out there.
What I suppose some (mostly liberals) fear is that if a minimum wage were abolished, wages would drop precipitously. A current minimum wage job might go from $7.25/hr (the current Federal minimum) to something much less. That’d be okay for a teenager in a burger joint...but it would not be okay for someone trying to raise a family.
Sure, as you said, that person should go and get an education and try to better themselves. There are some out there....for whatever reason...for whom getting a further education is not an option. One thing that has been in the news concerning that is that continuing education can incur substantial debt on a student. A person has to get further in the hole in order to get out of it. Most view that little fact with dread.
Yes, there are government-backed loans and grants that can take care of paying for it now....but don’t we as conservatives want to abolish all that? If they’re gone, how would a person pay for it if, say, they go to get a loan for college (without the government backing) and they cannot due to a bad credit score?
I have seen many a FReeper complain that the current education system is useless. If a person is to get an education to better themselves, how (in an ideal conservative way) would they do it? I have no answer.
Agree Don’t look for a handout but in mommy states it’s the new logic.