Need Anti-Living Wage Talking Points

[chambley1]

I need anti-living wage talking points for our crusade against it here in the Peoples Republic of Arlington, Virginia. Thanks Freepers

[ex-snook]

You're kidding right? "Let them eat cake."

[parsifal]

If workers starve to death at an early age, it will reduce the strain on the social security system. parsy who is in favor of living wages.

[Mark]

Just call them names like "Nazi"-- that always works.(/lib talk off)

[zook]

What do they mean by "a living wage"? Enough to support a family of four? I would respond first, perhaps, with arguments about how raising minimum wages causes jobs to disappear, especially for young people. Remember when theaters had ushers? When supermarkets had baggers?

I would also argue that not everyone needs or even deserves a "living wage." Teenagers, for example, and young people right out of high school or even college often live with parents, or can move in with friends to share costs of living. Also, many jobs are "starter" jobs where an employer is taking a risk, hiring someone with unproven skills, and where an employee can gradually raise his salary by demonstrating good work.

But then, I'm kind of old fashion about these things.

[Mark]

Supply/Demand- economics 101

Where does guvmnt get off, telling a person that he/she has to pay any specified amount?

[Principled]

Tell them that when they provide the job, they can make decisions on wages.

[kcar]

Who's complaining here? The dead?

[KneelBeforeZod]

tell them that if they have a "living wage" then they'll have to employ illegals under the table, and then there will be less tax money to send checks to people who don't feel like working.

Lisa: Didn't you wonder why you were receiving checks for doing absolutely nothing?"
Grandmpa Simpson: "I thought it was because the democrats were back in power"

[Political Junkie Too]

First, they have a "minimum" wage. Second, they want a "living" wage. What's next, a "maximum" wage?

-PJ

[Gore_ War_ Vet]

The sad truth is that the only time the term applies is when some govt. types are going to use YOUR money to double someone elses salary.

[ApesForEvolution]

Entry level work is not supposed to provide a 'living wage'. If someone wants a living wage, they need to produce a good or service deemed worthy by the market to provide them with enough money to live on.

If we are going to support a 'living wage' concept, why not make a $50,000 minimum annually for everyone, regardless what they produce?

How about $100,000? $200,000??

Any subsidy is simply a cost increase to the end line consumer.

If people like wealth redistribution mandated and enforced by a government they can move to Cuba and report back, but not come back.

$29.99 Happy Meals, here we come...

[Be Free]

Get them into a discussion, of "why not a 'middle-class' wage?", or an 'upper-class' wage?" Get them to express their 'living wage' in terms of $$ per hour. Then ask them, "why not $50 an hour? or, better yet $100 per hour?". At some number, they're bound to say that the work performed isn't worth that high a wage. Then you have them ... they've admitted that wages should have a correlation to value of work performed. Once this is done, then back to the original premise of markets determining wages, not socialists.

[Swordmaker]

Ask them:

"Which would you rather be? Employed at $5 per hour or unemployed?"

Certain jobs have a specific economic value. At some point, the COST of that job exceeds its value and it will no longer be done. Small business people, in particular, are prone to eliminate the marginal jobs, assign the duties to another existing employee for a small hourly increase in pay, or take on the duties themselves. In any of these choices an entry level job is eliminated.

Historically, every time the minimum wage has been increased, over 500,000 people have LOST THEIR JOBS. Minimum wage jobs are ENTRY level jobs, the first rung on the ladder of success. They are designed for short term, unskilled workers who do not necessarily require a "living wage." These are workers who live with parents or another income earner or are merely supplementing a household income.

Often, increases in the prevailing minimum wage is used as an excuse for landlords and others to raise their rates. This is in addition to the upward pressure put on prices (including the cost of semiskilled and skilled labor) by a generalized increase in the cost of labor. The values of hard earned promotions and labor contracts are DISCOUNTED when an unearned increase in the minimum wage is granted WITHOUT a commensurate increase in production.

[sourcery]

If $10/hour is good, wouldn't $100/hour be better? And if $100/hour is good, wouldn't $1000/hour be even better?

If it's OK (or morally required) to force employers to pay some minimum hourly wage, based on the needs of workers, then wouldn't it also be OK (or morally required) to force anyone and everyone to pay for whatever needs anyone else may have? Shouldn't people be forced to provide rooms in their homes for the homeless, if they have any spare rooms? And shouldn't those who have savings beyond what they currently need be forced to hand them over to those who don't have enough money to live on? And shouldn't those who have a spare kidney, eye, ear or lung be forced to donate to someone who needs one?

It should be self-evident that a person is solely responsible for achieving the goals and objectives he chooses. The responsibility for achieving a goal logically and morally rests with the person who chose the goal, because the principle of responsibility for the consequences of one’s own actions means that each person is morally responsible for his own actions—including his choice of goals and values.

If John has the "right" to compel Jane to aid or contribute to the implementation or realization of John’s goals, such a "right" would not have the property of non-rivalrous consumption. It is not possible for all persons that have a right that does not have the property of non-rivalrous consunption to freely and equally exercise the right without actively interfering with the rights of others. It is only possible for one person—in this case John—to exercise the "right" to compel Jane to aid or contribute to the realization of John’s goals without any possibility of conflict with someone else who also has that "right." Therefore, there is no justification for assuming that John should automatically have any "right" to compel Jane to actively aid John in the implementation or realization of his will. True rights can be exercised by everyone equally, without possibility of conflict.

Therefore, the needs of one person do not morally justify any mortgage or lien on the life, liberty or property of anyone else.

[Dems_R_Losers]

I live in the Workers Paradise of Alexandria, where they have already passed a Living Wage ordinance. (For those that don't know, it requires that the city and city contractors pay considerably more than the federal minimum wage - usually around $9.00 per hour.) I don't have a problem if the local government wants to pay high wages to its own employees, but forcing city contractors to do likewise is Stalinist. In the case of Alexandria and Arlington, they would not need a living wage if they did not have stupid anti-development policies that keep the supply of housing low and rents high. Their zoning boards keep approving more luxury homes and high-end yuppie gourmet grocery stores that are not needed, while nobody can build an apartment building because all the rich liberal NIMBYs don't want to hurt their property values. Arlington allowed the entire Arna Valley to be demolished so somebody could build 1000 expensive apartments for yuppies who don't even pay local taxes. Now the white liberals are agitating to "redevelop" Columbia Pike in order to get rid of all the low-income immigrants who live there. So the liberals assuage their guilt by enacting a living wage ordinance. These people never cease to amaze me.

[Blue Screen of Death]

How much are you willing to pay for my advice?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

1.) Freedom is good. (You heard it here first.)

2.) Minimum wage laws interfer with freedom. They undercut the rights of a willing worker and a willing employer to undertake a completely voluntary contract.

3.) Many people working at low-paying jobs may be teenagers living at home, and people otherwise on the bottom rung of the employment ladder. Minimum wage laws can raise the wages of some people on the bottom rung, but they will also drive some jobs out of the country, or the jobs my cease to exist. For instance, a grocer may decide not to hire people to carry groceries out to cars in the parking lots. For people for whom this is the best job they could find, the alternative is generally no job.

4.) To the extent that some people will never be able to make what some people deem a "living" wage, minimum wage laws are still counter productive. A negative income tax, with a low increment rate of 15% could more productively supplement the income of the poor, without providing perverse disincentives to job creation and economic activity.

[AdamSelene235]

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa106.html