Minimum Wage

[Martin Hash]

It is expensive to live. Anyone can have kids but not everyone can do something worth the cost of raising a family. Society cannot cope with the quandary of children living in dumpsters so minimum wage laws are the stopgap solution. While I generally agree with this crude attempt at social engineering, it doesn’t fully solve the problem and it creates new ones. There are some jobs that simply are not worth the cost of paying someone to do them. For example, washing dishes at a restaurant – a lot of the cost of the meal needs to be the cost of cleaning up afterwards. That’s why “fast food” franchises are so inexpensive – it’s not the volume, it’s the lack of labor involved.

In a society that artificially tries to keep people employed, make-work jobs are actually counterproductive because they subsidize inefficient activities. Governments that try to subsidize low-paying jobs in a private setting are simply distorting the marketplace – which is much worse in the long term. Odd as it seems, if the choice is between doing a counterproductive job or staying home – stay home! However, from a society perspective, to prevent resentment towards those suspected of taking advantage of the system, it is important that everyone do something. That’s why make-work programs that benefit the public at large, like trash cleanup along public highways, should be mandatory for welfare recipients. Of course that raises another list of problems, like childcare and public transportation…