Witch Doctors, Cancer, and the Minimum Wage

Minimun wage should have been raised. Rent has gone up so much since the Hurricane. If you apply for food stamps you cant recieve food stamps if you even have a job. You can't even recieve any energy assistant. The welfare office tells you come when you are not working. People who work hard and try to take care of their children they can barely feed and pay bills. the government dont help those who try to help themselves.Minimum wage cant not help people now at the cost of living expenses rent, food, gas, and retail. you loose any way you go if you remain in the state of Mississippi

A lot of misguided economic policy arises from the fact that many people want to show how sympathetic they are to the "downtrodden" or "disenfranchised". For people like that, it's about how kind a person they are (and how mean you are), and not really about economic policy, so it's difficult to reason with them.

If $5.15 is good, why not make it $100?

There are 12 people living in my home. I also own rental properties and the hispanics live several families per home. They have yet to miss a rent payment, while other units occupied by single (American) tenants have the highest default and eviction rates. What do you do if your income is insufficient to support yourself? You bundle it with another's and you share expenses. Duh.

Sorry. America is spoiled.

Stephen: "what should be done about those whose labor is worth less than what it costs them and their families to survive?"

Where is that happening, Stephen? As both Dinesh D'Souza and Phil Gramm pointed out 20 years ago, the U.S. is the only nation in history where the poor people are fat.

I think I've read that a single parent household can easily receive $10,000 or more in benefits. That would include food stamps, subsidized housing, EITC, and free medical care. If they can't survive on that, then they need to share housing. That's what some Mexican immigrants do until they're able to be on their own.

What more can be done? Some people simply refuse to do what is necessary to keep their jobs or improve their skills. If they're not going to change, and their kids are suffering, then maybe we should take away their kids.

Simple solution. If you can't afford to survive in Chicago on the minimum wage, just get a higher paying job.

Or move away from Chicago.

If employers who'd pay less than a particular wage minimum are criminals, put 'em in jail! And I guess that workers who'd work for less than that minimum wage must be criminals, too. Put their asses in jail, too!!

But if those two groups are criminals, then we ought to focus on the arch-villains, the real "hard core" of the underpaid. Yes--that's right! Anyone found to be committing "volunteer work" should get a few years' sentence--give them some time to reflect on their anti-social behavior.

"I oppose minimum wage laws, but my question is what should be done about those whose labor is worth less than what it costs them and their families to survive?"

The most effective way would be to give that person money.

Somehow they DO survive. They may not do it in the same environment; they may have to relocate to a lower-cost hood.

Among the poverty-stricken in America today, obesity is high on the list of health hazards. We seem to grant them free phone service (ostensibly to seek better employment), and all kinds of relief on other bills.

Given enough incentive, most anyone can better their lot.

I oppose minimum wage laws, but my question is what should be done about those whose labor is worth less than what it costs them and their families to survive?

Don, you really need to be in syndication.

"But, there is obviously a quantitative difference, and there is nothing illogical or contradictory about saying that yes, it is worth the cost to the economy to ensure that working people can afford to live somewhere in chicago, but no, it's not worth the cost to the economy to ensure that they can afford to live in beverly hills."

No one - at least no one in government or popular journalism - is making this argument. I repeat, no one is saying that it is "worth the costs to the economy" to raise the minimum wage.

The assertion on the table is that minimum wage should be raised, period. No trade-offs discussed. No alternatives considered. No consequences imagined.

The article to which Don was responding stated, in a parody of logic, says:

1. the minimum wage is not enough to live on in Chicago


2. therefore the minimum wage should be raised (presumably enough so that 1 is no longer true)

The faults here are nearly endless! Does 2 follow from 1? Does it follow from a general principle? Is the efficacy of this plan considered? Is its cost? Are any altnerative solutions considered? No! The author lives in a fantasy world where wages are controlled by government levers and we can all live in a magic land of milk and honey if we just pass enough laws. Against this "argument" Don's reductio ad absurdum is entirely appropriate. "Earning enough to live in Chicago" is an entirely arbitrary standard, so all that is being done is to re-pose the idea substituting a different arbitrary standard. And as True_Liberal points out, that's not the only alternative standard, and the "argument" makes just as much sense (ie: none) when we move it - quantitatively, mind you - in the other direction.

Sorry, Mark, but I guess I misunderstood your post.

You did seem to imply that I'm not capable of original thought:

"I've already heard all the arguments against the minimum wage that you might advance."

I could be anoyed by that statement but I won't be.

I am curious about your claim that Professor Boudreaux gets "angry and emotional replies" and that he "really pisses people off". That's surprising that he might evoke such reaction. To me, he's always seemed fair and patient. I don't remember him returning insults I've read hurled at him, such as claims that Don has a "severe disorder".

Do you think that Don is listened to, and not ignored, because he argues facts and theory? and avoids returning the anger and insults of others? I think I can learn this from Don: that patience and reason rather than emotion and insults helps others accept my arguments.

John Dewey,

You've already heard all the arguments that I might advance in favor of the minimum wage. I've already heard all the arguments against the minimum wage that you might advance. Somehow, we disagree despite that. I don't care to have that same argument for the 30th time, so let's leave it at that.

What I was objecting to in Don's reasoning was his assumption that there is no difference between chicago and beverly hills. He uses that assumption to claim that anyone who advocates a minimum wage based on a chicago cost of living, and doesn't also advocated a minimum wage based on a beverly hills cost of living is being inconsistent. This is what I call the "no difference between anything" rhetorical cheap-shot, and it is annoying.

If Don had made the familiar demand-suppression objection, I wouldn't have contested that.

Mark,

I didn't mean to ask about your views. I'm just curious about how it is logical that raising the minimum wage will ensure that people can afford to live in Chicago. Your the one that says the assertion is not illogical. So show us the logic.

The "how can I live on that?" argument falls apart rapidly.

First, spending by the poor is overwhelmingly weighted towards rent these days (as food has become relatively cheap), and the easiest way to cut your rent in half is to share your apartment. My great uncle talked about living six people to a room in a tenament in Brooklyn in the early part of the 1900's. Of course, in some places, the government steps in to prohibit this cost-saving strategy.

The other issue is that rent prices are where they are based on the market. If more people start making more money (through a minimum wage hike), rents may simply go up.

Being relatively poor will always be harder than not being relatively poor (although it is much easier than being absolutely poor, like the hundreds of millions of people outside the US living on under $1 per day). There isn't much you can do to help relative poverty except to encourage those in relative poverty to develop the skills needed to leave relative poverty.

John Dewey,

I wasn't _making_ the assertion that minimum wages should be increased in chicago. I was _mentioning_ that assertion and claiming that it wasn't as illogical as Don claimed.

Whether the minimum wage *should* be increased is not a topic that leads to interesting debate on this site, so I didn't state my opinion on that matter.

The converse argument also works: If a "living wage" in Spillville, Iowa is only $4.50, why does it follow that the minimum wage needs to be higher than $5.15?

Why such illogical arguments? Because they don't seem illogical from the starting point of the limited understanding of the system that these people have. They assume that if the minimum wage is raised, that the employers will simply be forced to reach into their own pockets and dish out more money. That this may not be feasible, or that the employers will probably take other actions completely escapes them. Therefore, it seems logical to them that anyone who opposes the minimum wage is simply trying to get out of paying higher wages. As they believe this to be irresponsible or selfish behavior, the personal attacks seem appropriate. But it all comes down to the fact that they don't understand the system - kind of along the same lines as getting mad at your car when it won't start.

Mark: "it is worth the cost to the economy to ensure that working people can afford to live somewhere in chicago"

Mark, how does raising the price of unskilled labor above market clearing levels ensure that people can afford to live in Chicago? Why doesn't that just force employers to outsource jobs to other countries or automate jobs or eliminate totally/partially the tasks being performed?

Mark,

My point has nothing to do with the comparative heights of raising the minimum wage in Chicago versus Beverly Hills. Instead, it has to do with the assumption that wages can be raised by dictate.

Yes, dictating a smaller increase in real wages causes less damage than does dictating a larger increase in real wages. But the argument to which I responded in the Wall Street Journal -- and each of most of the others along similar lines that I encounter elsewhere -- says nothing about trade-offs. These arguments simply say "Full-time workers earning the current minimum wage can't afford to live in the U.S./Chicago/Manhattan/whereever. Therefore, the minimum wage should be increased."

Such an "argument" is no argument; it is, at best, a lament. But even a legitimate lament is not an argument for a particular policy.

Don,

I've noticed that you have a severe disorder that allows you only to distinguish between things that differ qualitatively, not things that only differ quantitatively.

It is true that there is no qualitative difference between setting the minimum wage so that it can support a family in chicago, and doing the same for beverly hills. But, there is obviously a quantitative difference, and there is nothing illogical or contradictory about saying that yes, it is worth the cost to the economy to ensure that working people can afford to live somewhere in chicago, but no, it's not worth the cost to the economy to ensure that they can afford to live in beverly hills.

I think the reason that you get such angry and emotional replies is that your practice of so blithely ignoring the quantitative differences borders on sophistry and really pisses people off, even if they don't realize why what you are saying makes them so angry.

This is simply because many people (yes, I am making a broad, unscientific assumption here) do not, in general, think logically. This is especially true with regard to minimum wage, where the "morality trap" is often present. Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte really deserves more exposure; the author argues against such morally-fueled, well-intentioned, yet utterly illogical arguments.

Because the "logical" ones don't work!

Tim,

I've submitted 10 to 12 letters to the Dallas Morning News and to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram the past two years. Half were published in one paper or the other, which I'm told is a good success rate.

Letters under 100 words have a much better chance of being published in these local papers. Concise writing doesn't come easy for me, and I often rework a letter 5 or 6 times before submission. I usually ask a good friend and former English teacher to edit my work as well.

I think our local papers favor letters that disagree with their editorials. Both seem to care that balanced views are presented to the public.

I've never submitted a letter to the WSJ. I'm sure the competition is much greater.

Very well put. Every time I argue against minimum wage, I get the same type of reaction - I must never have been poor and must not care about those who are. If I didn't care about the poor though, I wouldn't be as much opposed to the hikes.

I wrote letters to the editor about the economics of the Chicago wage law, not only of un/underemployment but also on prices (that hit the poor hardest). Yet I seem to have a hard time getting published anywhere. Any advice?