So, when a person's job becomes outdone by technology or automation, we should force companies to pay them more?
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It's called supply and demand. If there's no demand for cheap laborers, the answer is not to make them more expensive to hire, or to force companies to pay them a minimum. That just exacerbates the problem - now they can't even work for wages they might be able to be worth. It's very difficult to get better at a job unless you're either working at it or have the resources to do it in your free time. Someone who can't get a minimum wage job probably doesn't have the resources to learn the skills to move up.
I can personally attest that it's not just teenagers trying to find minimum wage jobs. I am a teenager, and I while I was looking for a summer job (I'm now employed as a software consultant) I was regularly (i.e., every single time) competing with people in their 20s or even, in some cases, older than that, who were simply unable to find work elsewhere.
This way, they can either look for a real job to earn cash, instead of living on "vouchers/food tickets", or have to take classes to reskill/up-skill. They won't be battling for their next meal, but they also can't have leasure time.
Why not? You seem to think that there is only one big company setting wages for everyone. If company X needs good workers and is only willing to pay $5 per hour, but company Y is willing to pay $12 per hour, company X is not going to get the good workers. If they want better workers they will have to raise their wages.
> without any regard to the standard of living for the employees making those wages.
The clients who pay me do so without any regard to my standard of living. They pay me with regard to the value I provide. If you are suggesting that low skill employees need to be paid based on something other than the value they provide then you are suggesting that they be given charity rather than wages.
10 years ago a college degree in business or communications was enough to land a salaried-job. Now, to obtain a well-paying job straight out of college either a STEM degree or graduate work is usually required. It is extreme to suggest that citizens either acquire a high-level of education (which many simply cannot complete) or perform work for $2 an hour.
why is that a wrong ideal to move towards to? I agree that current education is poor, but thats an implementation problem. The idea that every citizen should be highly educated is a good one, and that in the future, in order to provide value (which is rewarded in the form of money), you can't just labour.
I'm only suggesting that a minimum wage is necessary, because there is a cost of living in a modern society. Money pays for shelter. Money pays for healthcare. Money pays for education and food. And unless you're in a socialist system, that money comes from wages. So a standard should be met. Especially in cases where a corporation would otherwise consider someone's labor to be essentially worthless.
And yes, perhaps if that standard itself were fair (assuming it's currently unfair), then in some places and in some jobs it might be less than whatever the current minimum wage is, where the minimum wage exists. Elsewhere it might be higher. I don't know, and I'll readily admit I might be bringing a checkers set to a chess match when discussing economics on this forum but I honestly believe it should be something.
That's a good argument for a guaranteed minimum income. It's a bad argument for a minimum wage laws, because at least sometimes they result in people earning zero instead of low wages.
And unless you're in a socialist system, that money comes from wages.
We're already in a partly socialist system. Minimum wage laws are a convoluted and inefficient form of welfare; it's better to just directly give money to poor people, and then avoid doing anything that interferes with their ability to increase their income.
If the standard of living is low enough that, taking the same wages as an outsourced worker, someone doing that job could still survive, you might have an argument against the minimum wage standard there.
Otherwise, if only option to retain local employment is to pay what those outsourced workers are making, or less, in a market where more than that means living hand to mouth, then it's a distinction without a difference to me.