Hacker News Reader

Comment by Liron | Hacker News Reader

Right, plus there are plenty of Americans who want to work for say $13/hr if the job is a rewarding one. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 is arguably low enough to raise somewhat because why not, but $15/hr is clearly high relative to the current supply/demand equilibrium.

View on HN

Another reason to increase the minimum wage is to reduce the number of workers who get such low wages that we give them welfare on top of their low wages so they can survive. We already have the situation that Walmart was kind of shamed into paying higher wages; huge amounts of their employees had their wages "subsidized" because their employees were on welfare! This isn't good for anyone. [1] 2014: walmart employees get 6.2 billion in public assistance. [2] 2018 thousands of amazon employees get welfare. Article 2 says paying a living wage (a higher minimum wage) could save 150 billion in government benefits. [3] 2015 Americans pay 153 billion in public assistance for low wage jobs at McD and Walmart. Underlying research in [4].

1. 2014 https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-... 2. 2018 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/24/thousands...

3. 2015 https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/15/... 4. http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-high-public-cost-of-low-...

It seems market forces are already working to do that with out the need for government intervention.

Many Companies (walmart, Amazon, Target, etc) have all raised their companies minimum starting wage to well above the federal minimum, some even to $15

This is correct way for wages to raise, not by government demand

I suspect those companies have raised their minimum wages not because of the local labor market, but instead because of nationwide PR risks.

That is just as bad as a law really. The companies will end up employing fewer people at higher wages, while other people end up unemployed, and the total nationwide labor salary gets reduced.

What about $8.40/hr for the current supply/demand?

>$8.40 in 2019, $9.50 in 2020, $10.60 in 2021, $11.70 in 2022, $12.80 in 2023, $13.90 in 2024 and $15 in 2025.

They can still work for less as a contractor, if they want, right?

Whether someone is an employee vs a contractor solely depends on the "economic reality" of their job. Neither the employer nor the employee can choose to have it classified as a contractor relationship if it isn't actually one.

For example, if Subway determines how, where, and when I make the sandwiches, and provides all the equipment and materials, then I am a de facto employee. Even if both Subway and myself voluntarily agrees that I am a contractor for whatever reason (sidestepping minimum wage laws in this case), and signs a service contract to that effect, I am still treated as an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

[0] https://www.dol.gov/whd/workers/Misclassification/misclassif...

[1] https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs13.htm

I disagree completely that employees and employers can't choose whether they are contractors. It's almost always better for companies to hire contractors, that's why they work really hard to structure it that way (see uber). Employees are more mixed in their preferences, but in my long career as a dev I've seen that being an employee is better than being a contractor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com