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Comment by djschnei | Hacker News Reader

Eh I'm not positive it should even be able to support a single person... Why do we insist on raising the bar for employment so high? If a 16 year old wants to get their first job, they shouldn't be required right of the bat have a productive output sufficient to support themselves. That's not the point of minimum wage jobs - or at least it never was until we started arbitrarily setting a minimum value.

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FDR proposed the minimum wage to guarantee anyone who works 40 hours a week a "living wage". It was signed into law in 1938. And, adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage has never been higher than it was in 1938. In other words, it's precisely the point of minimum wage, and it's increasingly failed to live up to its purpose ever since.

Wooosh. Yes, I am specifically speaking to the fact that declaring an arbitrary "minimum wage" does not effect the true minimum wage which is $0. By enforcing an arbitrary floor all you're doing is making it illegal for someone to work unless their output is more valuable than the floor. Good intentions, completely illogical.

I respectfully disagree. The U.S. has safety nets for those in poverty (e.g., TANF, Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, EITC, Supplemental Security Income, and housing assistance). Having the U.S. tax payer subsidize businesses unwilling to pay their workers living wages seems illogical to me. This is happening right now. Walmart, Amazon, and McDonalds, for example, all have huge numbers of employees dependent on welfare programs. Why is that logical, and how would dropping the already low minimum wage help this?

One solution gaining some attention is UBI. What are your thoughts on it?

The average retail worker is 37 years old[0]. If it is possible to structure our society in a way that those who work a minimum wage job are able to support themselves, then we should do so. I'm kind of flabbergasted at the resistence to this. If the purpose of a minimum wage is not to guarantee a person a minimum standard of living, then what is the point?

Keep in mind that minimum wage jobs often make it hard to actually get 40 hours. You'll be lucky to get even 20 a week. And they rotate the schedules so that your hours are different every week, which makes it incredibly hard to get a second job.

[0] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

> If the purpose of a minimum wage is not to guarantee a person a minimum standard of living, then what is the point?

In the US, minimum wage is defined as “the least you can pay anybody for any reason” with an exception for people who receive tips. As I understand it, some countries allow some people to make less than minimum wage.

I’m not entirely sure what the current point of the minimum wage is. The original idea was that it didn’t apply to everybody and was meant to make businesses less likely to hire people who were covered.

The minimum wage is not, and never has been, defined as “what an average worker should get for average effort.”

I agree that the average worker should have enough to live on, but I don’t see any connection between that and the minimum wage. People here are complaining about using “edge cases” to keep the minimum wage low, but by definition (“minimum”), the minimum wage is an edge case.

If that 16 year old works 40 hours a week, then they definitely should be able to live on it.

Why? What if the 16 year old wants to partly make money, partly learn the ropes of some job, and some place could use "some" help but not get meaningfully enough work to pay a kid [current minimum wage]? Right now, these kids and businesses are out of luck.

What if a 60 year old is feeling lonely and wants to be a greeter or lecter or something, more than they need money, but it is definitely not worth minimum wage for 99% of places to have such a job? Right now, these old folk and businesses are out of luck.

Why do you think money is the only operative thing here, or the only one ever possible, for all possible jobs for all possible people?

The sheer amount of work you exclude when you require all jobs to be livable is huge. Not everyone is trying to strike it out on their own. Some people want to help in small ways and are fine with commensurate pay. Why force these jobs out of existence? Are you sure doing so is solving the problem you want to solve, while creating no others?

That's all well and good if 16 year olds are the only ones making minimum wage.

And if their parents haven't kicked them out of the house already because they got pregnant too early.

Or have a sexual orientation that their parents don't agree with.

Or..

It would be easier and better to just help out edge cases directly. A 16 year old kicked out of their house for a pregnancy shouldn’t be forced to work minimum wage, but rather receive community support so they can finish schooling and rise to the point where they can prosper.

Do we need to handle those edge cases by mandating what employers have to pay ALL employees? Maybe there is a better way to help people in needy situations without distorting the labor market for everyone.

16 year olds working min wage is the edge case. The average retail worker for instance is 37.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

Not all retail workers make minimum wage.

It would be great if we could both implement a UBI and eliminate the minimum wage.

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