Economically speaking the labor market is well understood and stuff like minimum wage is basically a scam to dupe idiots into thinking the government can actually influence the labor marke.
At a fundamental level this is what happens:
-For every individual each person has unique talents, skills, abilities etc and people who want to buy these types of skills from the demand for labor.
-Every individual decides how much they want to work and for what rates. This is called the supply of labor.
-The interaction of the demand for labor and the supply for labor is what forms the market for labor.
-In an efficient (free market) every person is able to find some form of work as long as the value of their labor exceeds what they're being paid in wages.....thus unemployment is effectively becomes zero when you exclude everyone who provides negative labor value (permanently disabled etc.).
Whenever the government gets involved in the labor market, they always distort it to the DISAVANTAGE of both workers and employers. HOWEVER, government can also decide winners and losers when they're regulating the labor market (hence the reason politicians always insist on interfering with the labor market). It is a way to pander for votes but it comes at a heavy cost.
Minimum wage simply hurts those who are on the bottom rung of the ladder. For those people they simply become permanently unemployed. This is why you always hear about low wage jobs getting hundreds of applicants. With minimum wage, there is absolutely nothing saying that the employer must hire people or keep those jobs in the USA. Those jobs simply go overseas. So we must ask, is the USA really better off by having this permeant underclass of unemployed people? or are we better off scrapping minimum wage completely and allowing everyone to at least have some form of income.
The best action for government is to simply stop interfering with the labor market completely. Government's role in the labor market is to simply make sure people aren't being exploited (ban slavery, extortion, black mail etc.).
Economically speaking the labor market is well understood and stuff like minimum wage is basically a scam to dupe idiots into thinking the government can actually influence the labor marke.
At a fundamental level this is what happens:
-For every individual each person has unique talents, skills, abilities etc and people who want to buy these types of skills from the demand for labor.
-Every individual decides how much they want to work and for what rates. This is called the supply of labor.
-The interaction of the demand for labor and the supply for labor is what forms the market for labor.
-In an efficient (free market) every person is able to find some form of work as long as the value of their labor exceeds what they're being paid in wages.....thus unemployment is effectively becomes zero when you exclude everyone who provides negative labor value (permanently disabled etc.).
Whenever the government gets involved in the labor market, they always distort it to the DISAVANTAGE of both workers and employers. HOWEVER, government can also decide winners and losers when they're regulating the labor market (hence the reason politicians always insist on interfering with the labor market). It is a way to pander for votes but it comes at a heavy cost.
Minimum wage simply hurts those who are on the bottom rung of the ladder. For those people they simply become permanently unemployed. This is why you always hear about low wage jobs getting hundreds of applicants. With minimum wage, there is absolutely nothing saying that the employer must hire people or keep those jobs in the USA. Those jobs simply go overseas. So we must ask, is the USA really better off by having this permeant underclass of unemployed people? or are we better off scrapping minimum wage completely and allowing everyone to at least have some form of income.
The best action for government is to simply stop interfering with the labor market completely. Government's role in the labor market is to simply make sure people aren't being exploited (ban slavery, extortion, black mail etc.).