Posted on 11/22/2006 9:08:54 AM PST by SirLinksalot
Minimum Wage Ripples
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., and Robert J. Cihak, M.D., The Medicine Men
Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006
The impacts of minimum wage laws on marginally productive workers are well known among thoughtful and economically minded people.
I think the voters in the states which passed ballot initiatives increasing the minimum wage in their states were not aware of the ill effects of such laws.
As Thomas Sowell writes, "Young, inexperienced and unskilled workers are especially likely to find it harder to get a job when wage rates have been set higher than the value of their productivity."
If the government mandates increased wages, workers earning the minimum wage are more likely to find themselves without a job at all than with a higher-paying job.
Yet many people cannot produce enough to earn any given arbitrary minimum wage. My 37-year-old daughter Ruth is one such person. She has been developmentally disabled since birth. She has many difficulties; for example, her speech is usually limited to a few words and a rare short sentence. Socially, she functions at about a 3- to 4-year-old's level. The same goes for her job performance.
She works several hours every weekday in a Seattle-area sheltered workshop.
She does simple assembly and packaging work. Her wage is based on productivity, essentially piecework. In a good month, she makes $100, a fraction of what minimum wage laws would require.
How does the sheltered workshop get away with flouting these laws? The answer is simple. My daughter's workshop has an official, government-issued "Exemption from Minimum Wage" certificate posted on its wall.
The law does recognize that some people cannot and do not produce enough to earn a minimum wage. Sheltered workshops exist because of this fact. But the mechanism and paperwork to qualify for an official special certificate is far from simple.
As a result, very few businesses even try.
As a consequence, minimum wage laws have extinguished all but a very few employment opportunities for my daughter.
Many years ago now, I hired an employment consultant to try to find a job for her. Without Ruth even appearing for an interview, she did get one offer of a job retrieving shopping carts from a shopping center parking lot. But because she is prone to wander off on her own, she needs 24-hour supervision; she wouldn't be safe out in a parking lot on her own.
I'd be willing to have Ruth work for a prospective employer (such as a business or institution needing food preparation help in the kitchen) for nothing, on a trial basis. After she's had a chance to show what she could do, we could negotiate a reasonable wage.
I'd even be willing to pay an employer to try to find a productive niche for her. But as I understand these laws, all these activities would be flat-out illegal, without spending a great deal of time and money seeking special certificates and exemptions, which might or might not be granted.
As Rev. Robert Sirico writes in this month's "Acton Notes," "If politicians enact legislation to coerce employers to pay more, employers often have little choice but to lay off some unskilled workers or even to close shop."
These enterprises have no chance at all to consider new hires from even less-skilled workers, such as Ruth.
Yes, minimum wage laws do protect — they protect people such as my daughter from working — and they protect unions and other workers from competition by the lesser skilled.
Minimum wage laws severely limit my daughter's opportunities for work and the self-respect that can come from productive work.
Recently the Chicago city council passed a bill to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour. According to Sowell, "Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley denounced the bill as 'redlining,' since it would have the net effect of keeping much-needed stores and jobs out of black neighborhoods. Both Chicago newspapers also denounced the bill. The crowning touch came when Andrew Young, former civil rights leader and former mayor of Atlanta, went to Chicago to criticize local black leaders who supported this bill."
I hope this common-sense backlash spreads widely.
All Ruth can give me is her trust and love. What more can I ask of her?
But of you, dear reader, I ask you to remember the harm done her and others by minimum wage laws.
Editor's Note: Robert J. Cihak wrote this week's column.
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Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a senior fellow and Board Member of the Discovery Institute and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., comments on medical-legal issues and is a visiting fellow in Economics and Citizenship at the International Trade Education Foundation of the Washington International Trade Council.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
The minimum wage is simply fascism by another name. Government has no business dictating wages.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Sounds like she needs babysitter, not a job.
But think of all the illegals who now have job opportunities open to them.
Who will pay these higher wages when the illegals will do it for less? No social security, no workman's compensation, no problemo.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Just hire an illegal and be done with it!
Sheeeeesh.
Yes, she does, but as a human being she also derives meaning from being able to contribute, and she wants to contribute at whatever value she can, and the government is preventing that by artificially defining the value of the least capable contributer.
Yesterday Rush quoted a source that said the average FAMILY income of those earning the min. wage, is $49,000. How many adults cannot fathom what he said? Ans: Too many!
You, sir or madam, are one cold, heartless son-of-a-bitch. May you never have a son or daughter with this kind of disability; you obviously do not have the common sense required to raise any child. On behalf of the author of the piece, I accept your apology.
The problem with the minimum wage issue is simple. Arguments against it are complicated, lengthy and usually correct, while arguments for it are short and filled with emotional appeal. I don't have the statistics, but a large majority of Americans probably support minimum wage laws.
Looked at realistically, it is a starting wage. It allows the employer to evaluate the employee while he/she learns the job skills necessary to be worth more. If the employee is successful during the evaluation and proves their value, they have a job and probably a raise. If they don’t prove their value they are out the door (if it is a “Right to Work” state).
If the “Minimum Wage” is increased, few employers will be willing to give someone a chance because of the economics of the situation. The “Minimum Wage” should not be looked at as a long time living wage because it isn’t. The “Minimum Wage” that many think is fair is based on what they think they would start at with their job skills and experience. In reality, if you have skills and experience you won’t be starting at the “Minimum Wage.”
The case of the mentally disabled person discussed in the article is unfortunate, but a distraction to the real issue of "Minimum Wage.
I have my hand up over here.
Pure numbers lead me to ask, how can that be ?
without adding in EIC\Food Stamps etc...
good point. most of the so-called minimum wage jobs(at least here in MN) are held by teens and college kids and most often are part-time and/or seasonal.
One of the minimum wage ripples is inflation. Which negates any proposed benefit. In addition to there be exemptions to any minimum wage. I argue that a government in order to protect its citizens should establish a criteria what costs of living should be included in establishing a minimum wage formula and that formula be followed by our individual states which set the ammount. Not a one size fits all regulated dollar ammount set by the government in Washington.
http://www.theusmat.com
Good article. Zoning laws and licensing laws hurt the poor, too.
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