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Comment by eqdw | Hacker News Reader

> My policy preference would be a law that creating a universal wage subsidy of $7.75 an hour, thus guarantees every worker a total wage of at least $15 an hour.

I really like this idea. Lately I've been thinking about minimum wage laws (SF, $15/hr min wage, etc) and something about it rubs me the wrong way. It feels like minimum wage laws are a convenient way for governments to take all the credit for improving the lot of the poor, while making others (companies) pay for it. It also feels like it disproportionately impacts small business owners, who are already stretched pretty thin.

Implementing a minimum wage like that, where part of the burden is on the government, and comes out of tax revenues (which can be collected in a more progressive fashion) really appeals to me

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Yes, exactly. The economic right wing has a valid point, that many small business owners cannot bear the burden of a higher minimum wage. Asking a factory owner who is barely making payroll due to competition from China to boost his wages could be a death knell. The money for wage increases needs to come from those who are the big winners in the winner-takes-all-games that are technology and globalization.

Also, the value of min wage needs to be mapped on some topography of need. A $15/hr in SF or NYC is paltry due to the geographic localization of other prices--higher cost of living. Meanwhile, hiring 16 year in some middle-america towns probably shouldn't be dictated by "rich people's problems" imported from New York or California. All that being said, I also like the top-posters idea about adding a subsidy to basic negotiated/market wages. Because ultimately everything is simply a negotiation. And the non-work-related subsidy is something people can use to "walk"--so it's effective leverage as a tool of last resort.

If SF or NYC wants a higher wage, the city could augment the subsidy out of its own tax coffers.

I am however, very much against the idea of taxing a machinist in Alabama to subsidize wages in NYC.

I am also amenable to the idea of having the subsidy only be for those over 18, or people who are supporting families.

But I do think it is reasonable to provide $15 jobs in middle America. Right now, young people feel a compulsion to head to NYC/SF/DC to gain access to these job markets, which feed off the money surplus from winner-take-all-industries. I would rather that the money get spread around more, and that once again a decent middle class life would be easy to obtain in what is now known as the rust belt.

Right now we tax workers in NYC to subsidize people on in Alabama. (NYC gets < $0.60 for every $1 of federal taxes collected; Alabama gets > $2).

It's true that rural areas get a lot of farm and energy subsidies - but those subsidies also lower prices for those of us that live in the cities.

You do realize that every time minimum wages are raised like this the cost(s) are simply passed on through to the consumers. The net effect is that the cost base rises with the wage base, so no one actually gets ahead - the nominal price point is just set to a higher figure.

I don't believe this is actually true. Compare the cost of living and minimum wage in Sydney, Australia with comparable cities in the US(San Francisco for example) or Canada(Vancouver). The cost is about the same for most things despite Sydney having a much higher minimum wage.

I'm not entirely sure this is true. Anecdotally, things seemed to be more expensive in Sydney. I wish I had better data, but I find this comment difficult to accept blindly. Actually, a quick Google shows some data supporting my experience, but I can't vouch for the data quality so I am not linking. If anyone else has anything worth adding, I'd welcome more information.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...

Thats where I got my data.

Minimum wage in SF is $8/hr. Minimum wage in Sydney is $16.87 so more than twice that.

I use to live in Sydney and it was very expensive. But not much more expensive than comparable cities.

Often they can't be passed on due to competition so the businesses employ less people instead.

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