What’s the Right Minimum Wage?

PragerUniversity asked:

What’s the perfect minimum wage: is it $10 an hour? $15? $20? How about zero? That’s right. Zero. While Congress discusses a minimum wage hike, economist David Henderson shows that any …

Cellular Discount

24 thoughts on “What’s the Right Minimum Wage?

  1. gxd000

    mac

    And yet the CEO-to-employee wage gap gets wider and wider every day…
    Minimum wages can and should be raised; those funds have to come from the
    stratospheric CEO and elite wages. Companies can still be as profitable
    when cutting CEO salaries by at least half.

    Reply
  2. Don Turner

    Meow

    When the government sets an artificial “minimum wage” it forces more people
    toward the true minimum wage — $0.00/hr.

    In the video below economist David Henderson explains the problems that
    arise from an artificial minimum wage and why $0.00 is the right minimum
    wage.

    Reply
  3. Jason Scott

    translate japanese

    how about like we have in the uk different minimum wages for different
    ages. also if the workers are paid more then the higher prices wont
    affecthem. also im sure companies like mcdonalds arent going to struggle
    paying higher wages 

    Reply
  4. mikunt1

    Hydros

    ok and what about all the people who do have job experience but still will
    only be paid minimum wage even if they stay with the company several years
    and do an exceptional job. That is what is going on. It’s because the big
    guy doesn’t want to give more then he has to. there are a lot of jobs out
    there which are above fast food service and do require some skills which
    only pay minimum wage just for that reason.

    Reply
  5. frbe0101

    New gadgets

    No minimum wage will further reduce the value of the human worker, and make
    it harder for workers to make wages they can live on. Employers will be
    able to find employees desperate enough to work for next to nothing such
    that those that need to work for more to pay for their family won’t be able
    to work for anything at all, and no longer have the money to maintain buy
    food or shelter. It would be like outsourcing but within the country!

    Reply
  6. Artemis Ameretsu

    New Site

    Yes but the productivity of US workers WAS going up, even when the wage
    stayed stagnant or barely ticked upwards. I mean, even when the minimum
    wage didn’t budge, workers didn’t get a sudden wage jump because their
    productivity improved, and if accounting for inflation their wages actually
    went down.

    I don’t see how companies would fairly compensate their workers for their
    productivity if there wasn’t a baseline that workers should at least be
    paid. If everyone is hiring at 5 dollars an hour, even if the cost of bread
    is $1 and gas is $3-4 a gallon, if all anyone will offer is 5/hour that’s
    what they are gonna have to take for their unskilled, or slightly skilled,
    labor. 

    Reply
  7. pinoyprideworldwide8

    socks proxy

    If I wanted anymore bullshit I’d watch FOX NEWS.

    Zero of COURSE supports businesses, but BUSINESSES don’t represent all the
    people. A minimum wage supports the people. People will have MORE
    DISPOSABLE INCOME to spend ON BUSINESS that the U.S. is dependent on
    CONSUMPTION.

    You need a balance of both Republican and Democrat ideas, so both sides get
    what they want. Trying to take out the minimum wage would NEVER HAPPEN. No
    one would agree to it, because so many PEOPLE are dependent on it rather
    than a 1000 companies compared to 28 million people.

    Businesses can already HIRE a COMPUTER ENGINEER in INDIA for practically a
    $0.00 minimum wage instead of paying someone locally $60k. 

    Reply
  8. bluetrilobite

    New Site

    Demand for goods and services is the engine that drives the economy and not
    businesses ability to profit as this video would like you to believe. You
    can pay all workers an insanely low minimum wage and offer your products
    at super deal prices, but if the people then don’t have the money to buy
    your products, your company will fail nonetheless.

    Furthermore, hiring new people is a company’s last resort to cope with
    increased demand for their product. If the company can meet the demand
    while paying it’s employees $X.00, it will not hire twice as many employees
    if you allow it to pay them half $X.00.
    Also, a company will make you work as hard as possible in order to increase
    productivity regardless of whether you are payed $1.00/hour, $10.00/hour or
    $20.00/hour; so this video is completely incorrect and borderline
    propaganda.

    Reply
  9. YamiShadow Kitty

    website designs

    I think the content in this video is on the right track, but I’m tentative
    about certain elements– but most of those are issues related to inflation,
    which is a government sourced problem, rather than a business sourced
    problem. I should be up front and say I’m not dismissing such issues with
    what I’ll be writing from here, but I will be putting that to the
    back-burner because it’s a problem which will be solved by different
    questions than the minimum wage question.

    There’s another point here that actually wasn’t brought up, which may very
    well make the argument against a minimum wage (or at least for a minimum
    wage low enough that not even employers will be actively looking to pay
    “at” minimum wage) more compelling. Minimum wage is an interesting concept
    being that it tells employers “we should pay most of our staff at this
    rate.” This means that even if it’s a wage rate so low we’re looking at
    “just” enough for one person to get by on their own– maybe with a single
    child, maybe not– then we’re looking at a politically endorsed system
    which tolerates extortionist wages. They can just hold up their hands and
    put on an innocent face and say “Hey, the government says it’s acceptable.
    If you’ve got a problem with that, take it up with them.” Without a minimum
    wage, an employer has no political endorsement level to look to. What they
    would need to do is negotiate pay with a prospective employee at the time
    of hiring– an employee who has likely worked out their own cost of living,
    because they need to to get by. This is a pretty compelling reason to
    oppose the minimum wage.

    But, for obvious reasons this actually doesn’t settle the issue. One could
    just as easy go from my point to “and that’s precisely why we need a
    minimum wage that is higher– so that people will have that kind of money,
    whether they successfully negotiate with their employer or not!”

    One of the other interesting points to bear in mind is Fordism, which
    another comment-er (+MihaiRUdeRO ) brought up in another conversation on
    this video. It’s important to note that Fordism doesn’t lead to “and that’s
    why we need a high minimum wage!” but rather, more broadly, that “paying
    employees well is really good for the economy.” One could just as easily
    take as the upshot of this that “this is precisely why employers will pay
    well even without a minimum wage, obviously.”

    I guess what I’m getting at is that there’s an extent to which this is an
    open question: will raising the minimum wage hurt employment rates? Will
    cutting the minimum wage lead to extortionate pay rates? Given the plethora
    of examples between things such as Australia and the examples cited in this
    video, the answer seems to be “maybe, but not necessarily” to both
    questions.

    In many ways, this is a hard one because it depends upon many other
    contingencies (one being the inflation issue which I put on the
    back-burner),some of which being serious questions of:

    1. Company profit margins and how minimum wage increases would affect
    profit margins. (Suppose in Australia, profit margins were high so it
    worked, but in the States they’re– theoretically– lower and so a minimum
    wage increase wouldn’t work.)

    2. Intelligence of prospective employees. (Someone pretty stupid might walk
    into a job thinking they can get by on $2 an hour, for example. This brings
    in that whole convoluted and difficult issue of the education system, which
    I won’t address at great length here.)

    3. Population size. (If you’ve got a population too big for employers to
    employ anyways, how are questions of what to do about the minimum wage
    going to have any impact whatsoever on employment rates– other than
    perhaps making them worse than before, in the case of an increase? This
    brings in the whole question of new businesses and entrepreneurship, and
    how to get more “overall” employers into the market rather than just “jobs
    from the already present employers.”)

    4. Company willingness to export labour to third-world countries. (Really
    patriotic company? Then, “dammit, we’re employing locals no matter the
    cost!” Not so patriotic company? “You know, that minimum wage increase
    doesn’t look good for profits. I’d rather not bump up prices and hurt the
    consumer end of my business, so… Better start another factory in Brazil,
    or maybe get something going in China.”)

    There’s a lot of nuance to this issue to bear in mind, and honestly
    speaking you can’t really just outright say one solution or the other is
    universally an objectively superior solution. Perhaps there’s an
    objectively superior solution “for America’s situation” or “for Australia’s
    situation,” though. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the same solution.

    Reply
  10. Palmer Nedrebø

    better MPG

    I’m starting to see the conservative strategy. Just give american’s the
    advantages progressives want one at the time, then remove it when it fails.
    And keep telling the american public that the think didn’t work at all
    because it didn’t work here. Instead of looking at other countries where
    the strategies work, because you need more than one thing at the time.

    Increase minimum wage
    get the youth to free higher education
    increase taxes
    And stop spending all your money on weapons

    + a little more, and the system will start working. look at an other
    countries where it works ad just try to copy

    Reply
  11. Data Jack

    u pull u save

    Why do wealthy, conservative Christians fight so hard to keep US poor
    people poor?
    As an argument against this nonsense: Walmart. When the minimum wage goes
    up, they are not going to hire fewer people. They are not going to cut
    hours. They are not going to jeopardize their insanely profitable business
    model because of slightly increased costs. Instead, they will do what they
    have always done – pay the least amount to their employees that they can
    legally get away with and continue to make billions in profit every year.
    But that’s not the real issue. The issue is that you even care enough to
    make this video. Perhaps some people will have their hours cut. But now
    they make the same money for less work. And you cannot really demand
    increases in productivity or cut training to a burger flipper. This is
    unproven nonsense to justify bigotry.

    Reply
  12. TopGunPaintballer

    Anti Spy

    I like this. But it’s so hard to trust sleazy businesses. I work at a fast
    food franchise for a year in high school before moving up in life. That
    time was bullsh*t. Just by how they ran. 7 hours without a break. That’s
    cool. Work hard and put up with that for $7.25. 

    Reply
  13. tryplot

    vacation rentals

    you seem to be confused … take a look at Ontario, Canada. minimum wage
    there was frozen for 10 years, and yet prices were still going up, and
    people were still loosing jobs/getting hours cut. it wasn’t until just
    recently that minimum wage started to rise to meet the minimum amount
    required to buy the basic human needs (food, water, shelter). If you think
    that’s an exaggeration, your wrong. many people in the fast food industry
    had to live with their co-workers so that they could afford both food, and
    an apartment. minimum wage does not dictate prices, prices dictate minimum
    wage.

    Reply
  14. Zack Owens

    pizza

    Looking through the comment section I see one fascinating trend. Apparently
    people are of the opinion that no minimum wage means you are FORCED to work
    for free. This is just simply not true. It just means that your worth as a
    worker is up for debate instead of being fixed at a number that most likely
    doesn’t represent your true worth as an employee.

    Example: You go to your local deli and ask for a job. “Sure”, says the
    manager, “I’ll start you off working for free. I won’t pay you a dime.”.
    “Wait a minute!”, you reply, “Why would I work for free? I would be
    devoting time, energy and resources of my own in hopes of making a
    living.”. The manager gets angry and says “You have no choice! I’m your
    boss now! So get to work!”

    This is what people are thinking would happen as seen in many comments with
    their use of the word “slavery”, which implies that the worker has no
    choice but to work and receives no compensation. But what would really
    happen would be something more along the lines of this:

    You walk into your neighborhood deli and approach the manager. “Hello, I
    would like to apply for a job if you have a position open.”, you announce.
    The manager responds “Well we do have one, but first, what kind of
    experience do you have working? Have you a work history? Education
    perhaps?”. You think for a second and reply “Sorry to say, this would be my
    first job. However, I’m currently a senior in high school and working
    toward my diploma.”. The manager takes a minute to consider what you have
    said and says “I would have no problem hiring a determined young lad such
    as yourself. How does $5 per hour sound starting out?”. To which you reply
    “$5 seems maybe a bit low. Could I get you to raise it to, say, $8?”. The
    manager looks at you and says “My boy, you have no experience working and
    therefore it would not be appropriate to start you off at such a high wage.
    But you have spirit and I admire that in a youth such as yourself. What say
    I raise my offer to $6.50 and depending on your work, we’ll talk about
    further increases in wage at a later date?”. This excites you! You humbly
    agree to his terms and begin work the next day.

    But what if you weren’t happy with his offer? Is he forcing you to start
    anyway? Of course not! You’re free to refuse and search for another job, or
    take him up on his offer and search for a better paying job while receiving
    your paychecks from the deli.

    Reply
  15. Cloner Stive

    fast mortgages

    Lol.

    “If words appear on screen in a kinetic motion while I say them… it makes
    my garbage sound more legitimate”

    The problem is the system is set up to reward positions, rather than actual
    market place value. This becomes abundantly obvious when you look at
    various bail outs. Huge bonuses to CEOs, while the employees that made the
    Fondation work go un rewarded. If the minimum wage were 0 dollars, entry
    level jobs would pay less than 7 dollars an hour, and everyone would need
    to work 80 hour work weeks to scrape out a meager existence.

    As technology advances, each employee has become more valuable Over the
    years, but their pay has not. Well why not find a different place in that
    sector that pays more? Because it doesn’t exist. Higher minimum wage puts
    more money into the hands of consumers which then spend the money back into
    the economy. The current structure encourages bonuses to CEOs, who then
    store the capital, rather than spend it back into the economy. Sorry if
    this doesn’t fit your narrative of the free economy balancing itself. A
    free market would, but with bail outs that’s no longer what we have. A
    significant number of companies should have gone under by this point
    because they failed in the market. And instead of competition coming in
    that could have paid higher wages to non execs, and reduced the wage gap,
    the government just pooled more money into the existing hands, so nothing
    could change.

    When this happens, capitalism gets murdered. Even an online game (eve
    online) has a better working free market. Corperations fail if they do not
    adjust to the market. There are no hand outs, and people can earn what they
    are worth. That can’t happen when multi million dollar corperations get
    bailed out for failing.

    Reply
  16. Johnny Doe

    New Site

    The concept that we’re raising the wage without profit or productivity
    going up (that he argues at 1:05) is blatantly false. Profit and
    productivity have both gone up continuously for quite some time now. The
    problem people have is that real wages haven’t kept up, so you have all
    that extra profit going to less than .1% of the population (for the most
    part) while the poor get poorer and poorer, and a wage inequality gap
    widens more and more. Now obviously minimum wage isn’t the only reason for
    this, but to say that it minimum wage shouldn’t exist, or that it somehow
    hurts people, is ridiculous. Without a minimum wage and some level of
    government intervention, you would have employers who say “This is how much
    we’re offering, take it or leave it” and employees who take it because if
    they don’t, they will starve and someone else will take the job. Add in
    deregulation of business practices and dissolution of unions, and workers
    rights would resemble something like slavery.

    Reply

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