Dumping minimum wage (along with reducing or eliminating all kinds of other regulations employers have to observe with regard to employees) would work MIRACLES in every aspect of the economy. Teen employment would boom. Employment of unskilled but intelligent Americans would boom. Employers could afford to pay workers what they were worth. Have you ever been to Mexico and seen the cities of cardboard boxes? Whole suburbs? A hardworking Mexican kid18 or 20 who snuck up to the states, rent a super-cheap motel room with two friends, and get -- and hold on to -- a 40-hr-week job as a dishwasher in a Denny's -- you had better bet your ass that that kid is going to show up for work. Chances are he and his roomies are sending most of the money back to Mexico to their families.
Their competition for those jobs is dominated by immature kids, drop-outs, unskilled, who hate being a dishwasher, think it's beneath them, keep the job for maybe four months before quitting, because minimum wage to them is nothing. Drop that minimum wage (along with the freebies), and the illegal Mexican doesn't have nearly the motivation to come here. And the employer sure as hell doesn't have the motivation, especially if the INS is on his back, to hire illegals. He can hire American kids. If minimum wage went down, the price of EVERYTHING would go down. So a teenager working for what he was worth, would have money worth something.
“A hardworking Mexican kid18 or 20 who snuck up to the states, rent a super-cheap motel room with two friends, and get — and hold on to — a 40-hr-week job as a dishwasher in a Denny’s — you had better bet your ass that that kid is going to show up for work. Chances are he and his roomies are sending most of the money back to Mexico to their families.”
I’m well aware of this. Eliminating the minimum wage isn’t going to change this situation. The competition is still there, except now, this kid gets the dishwasher job.
What incentive is there to hire a kid who has an entitlement mentality, doesn’t work, doesn’t produce over someone who does work hard and produce?
As a business owner who am I going to hire?
I agree, eliminate the minimum wage, but that’s not going to lessen the competition. If anything the competition will be higher because many immigrants who are unskilled will be able to find some kind of work available for dirt cheap.
The only thing that is protecting many American workers is the minimum wage because the unskilled labor has to work hard enough to make up the value of minimum wage.
Eliminating it altogether, well, now you’ve got that slacker competing with the same folks but for less pay. There’s never any incentive to hire bad employees, as long as there are harder working folks out there, those folks will get hired.