“It’s not Bob’s fault that this employee has bills to pay! If we really believe that people have a right to have all their basic needs met by some third person, shouldn’t that burden be shared equally across society in the form of taxation, rather than shared unequally by making some employers the de facto parents of society’s less productive members?”
Now you have finally hit the nail on the head. It costs something for the basics of human life. Lets assume $2,000 minimum a month for purposes of this argument. If the employer does not meet that amount, the taxpayers will pick it up, because most of us don’t want people sleeping on park benches, starving to death, and going untreated for medical problems.
There is a whole class of the poor called the “working poor.” A lot of these people work for companies who could pay more, but choose not to and let the rest of us pick up the tab. It wasn’t always this way. Min wage used to be livable and our country wasn’t doing so bad. Then we let it slide.
Gov’t has no business setting all wages for all people. But setting a lower limit, is just good sense. As an accountant in a former life, the costs are there whether you make the journal entry or not.
Now as to cheapo, I have more sympathy then you think. If he is a one man show, minwage could indeed affect him more than say, Walmart. But if all had to live by the same rules, there would be more demand (>MPC)and Cheapo would probably have more demand for his product.
parsy, who has to stop in a minute to finish read Superman vs. Spiderman from 1976
I agree that there will always be some people who, despite their best efforts, are not productive enough to provide for their own needs. We probably disagree on just how many people are really in that situation, but we have to agree that at least SOME people are that unfortunate.
And I think we both agree that *someone* must pitch in to help these people meet the basic needs they can not meet for themselves...that there is at least a moral obligation to take care of them. The question is, what is the fairest way to meet that obligation? Which way is most efficient?
We might try to meet that moral obligation without imposing legal obligations on anyone. In other words, we could just rely on private charity to take care of the needy. If there aren't many unproductive people, and most productive people are naturally generous, that might work.
But let's say the voluntary approach doesn't work. Let's say we agree that some people must be FORCED to help out the unproductive. But how do we decide who shoulders this burden? It's not as if anyone is at fault. Usually no one has caused an unproductive person to be unable to support themselves. (If someone is at fault then they should be made accountable through our court system). No one caused this person to need food and shelter...it's just a fact of our existence.
So if we are going to force some people to support others, the only fair way to do it is to require everyone to pitch in. We all benefit from not having to see people starving in the streets. We all take comfort in the idea that the social safety net (might) protect us from unexpected catastrophe. If society collectively decides that we MUST help the unproductive, society should enforce that obligation collectively. That means relying on taxation.
What would NOT be fair is to make only a select few shoulder the burden of supporting the unproductive, such as by requiring "living wages." As I demonstrated in my last post, once you pay someone a wage higher than their productivity, you are in effect giving that person charity. So why pick employers as the ones who must offer this charity? Again, they are not the ones who caused people to be unproductive or to have a phone bill.
In addition to being unfair, living wage laws would also be inefficient. Consider someone whose labor is only worth $5/hr. Even with slightly higher MPC, it wouldn't make sense to pay this person $15/hr. With a living wage law this kind of person will never be hired. Now the taxpayers has to support ALL of his needs instead of just some, and the unproductive person contributes nothing economically since he is unemployed.