Workers compete against other workers (not employers) to find jobs and get the highest wages. Employers compete against other employers to find the best workers. In other words, low-skilled workers compete against high-skilled workers in the labor market. Low-skilled workers who would be employable at a low wage become unemployable at an artificially higher wage. And that explains the perverse cruelty of minimum wage laws: it inflicts the greatest harm on the very workers it is allegedly designed to help.

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell: “The real minimum wage is zero”

Well the solution does not seem to be working by constantly raising the minimum. We could raise it to $50-$100/hr but what good will it be of all the businesses have to cut back hours, lay people off and raise prices to remain profitable enough to open? Most businesses are small businesses, and run on razor thin margins. You force them to raise their payroll costs and they can’t stay open. And these are not the “1%” either.

I already agreed that the minimum wage was a flawed system. I was asking if you had any ideas for a better solution other than abolishing the current system with no replacement

Neither can the government be trusted to provide a "living wage".

Similarly, the wage earner that cannot provide a "living wage" is a lazy person.

The fallacy of your argument is that the minimum wage has long been disparaged for not being a "living wage".

Get a promotion or get a second, third, job if you cannot live on the wages paid by your employer.

Reminder: you did not have to accept their job offer. You agreed to provide labor for the wages offered.

It really is that simple.

It is that easy.

It is not that you do not make enough money, it is that you have too many bills.

The people that "struggle to survive" despite having multiple jobs have no money management skills.

They waste their money, save nothing, and complain about their lot in life on the internet while waiting for door dash go deliver their starbucks venti pumpkin spice frappuccino and amazon to arrive with the latest bauble they've ordered.

If you live BELOW your means you will live well and have a healthy cash reserve.

If you prioritize basic needs and building a cash reserve over wants and keeping up with the Jones', you will be on the path to financial stability.

If you cannot afford your current rent, move to a cheaper home.

If you cannot afford your credit card bill, quit using the credit card - it costs you much more money you do not have.

If your electric bill is too high, unplug the electronics, put on a sweater, keep lights off, do laundry late at night.

I could go on for pages of text but it is a waste of typing as it falls on "deaf" eyes.

Are you aware that in the 30 minutes couple eat their meal, incurring an $80 bill, the waitress earned $1.50 from the employer and, even if they are cheapskate tippers, $8 from the couple. That's equates to $19/hour serving that one table. You can add an additional $16 per hr per table over the one.

Two tables, miser tipping, $35/hr.

But wait (see what I did there?), there's more!

The average waitress has four tables!

That's a potential $67 per hour or more!

No wonder they only work four hours a day!

The reason most waitresses are broke is because they go bar hopping after they close.

Ahh, to be young again.

Truth be known, minimum wage is not for the benefit of the worker or the business, but for the benefit of the government.

They simultaneously base payroll taxes on wages paid and set the minimum wage amount they will permit from which to draw those taxes.. 7.65% from the employee and the employer matches that 7.65% out of the employers pocket.

That is equivalent to Walmart making you buy a certain dollar amount of groceries to be able to use their store.

Perhaps if one spent as much time thinking about getting their finances in order and less time thinking how unfair it is that the child of another who did just that wastes the patriarch's effort and associated wealth, one could eventually become well off enough to have an envied child oneself.

Dave Ramsey called, he wants his book back.

I’m just wondering where all this rhetoric about saving your own money and stop blaming others about your financial situation was the past four years.

Poor people called, they want their excuses back.

Those that manage money well fared well.

Those that do not manage well, struggled.

Leftists pretended they were doing better than ever while whining about low wages and high rent as they in reality were failing.

I have not read a dave ramsey book, but it seems you have.

What did his book say about making excuses for one's own poverty?

So what you’re saying is that all the muss and fuss about inflation and egg prices were fabricated just because you needed an excuse to not like Biden that wasn’t based on conspiracy. That’s what I’m hearing.

All your reasoning is based upon the very opposite of things you supposedly champion given our past conversations. If you don’t want to have serious, nuanced discussion, just say so and leave.

Where did you get that statement? I know many farmers in red states personally. None of them push for minimum wage increases. It seems those who push for it are those who live in luxury mansions on the suburbs of deep blue cities.

I got it from the OP.

How about you try reading the book I quoted? You will find it quite informative.

Willfully ignorant and so unable to make an informed decision.

And yet the capitalist is able by looking out for his interests to actually help others. Communism fails. But I don’t have time to argue today as I’m being a capitalist to help veterans in need today

Tell me you have no clue about how capitalism works without telling me you have no clue about how capitalism works.

No community can possibly anticipate every need of every individual in the community. And as individuals make up any community, the needs and rights of individuals come before that of the community. The best way to meet the needs of individuals and respect their rights is by private enterprise: each looks out for himself and his family, and the whole benefits by each benefiting individually. THAT is capitalism.

Ask the child why he or she has not created a means of production.

Really.

Ask.

😄

Communism is the ultimate exploiter of humanity.

There is a difference between greed and individual drive. A person can make a better life for their self and their loved ones in capitalism though education and skill development. Greed is what you see in the middel east and African countries, their leaders eat steak on golden thrones while their people eat bugs on chairs made of shit.

That last part speaks volumes.

Look at all the millionaire senators telling you that the wealthy do not pay their fair share.

Is anyone so naive as to believe these same senators are going to raise their own taxes.

Actually it’s not so much greed as selling the surplus fruits of their labor to meet the needs of others.

😄 a "communist" that does not get the reference!

I'm only surprised that I'm surprised.

What about if one struggles because they don't do anything? Then they get help for absolutely free. Is that fair? Others have to work so that one person can lay back looking like the victim.

Exactly right. Communism breeds laziness. As those who do produce realize they are working hard while others do nothing and still get the same. Then they decide to do the same.

Unless they are forced to work.

Which is why all communist societies issue work quotas.

Education and skill development gives you a much better control with in the standards of economics in this country, and you are less likely just to be a brainless worker bee like in a communistic economy.

Free education is a government program that endoctrinates people to not think for their selves. They create the worker bees to work and never own anything until they die. Its so sad.

In communism nobody owns anything. You keep preaching that the community owns everything, now you say individuals can own what they want? Capitalism says people can own what they want, as long as they don’t steal it from others. In communism the non-producers steal from the producers. “Whoso teaches not his son a trade makes him a thief” (Talmud paraphrase)

Try that with human egos in play and watch your whole world crumble. Someone always wants to be in charge.

If everyone owns everything, nobody feels responsible. Source: My living place, East Germany.

That’s rich coming from someone who lived only in a “communist” commune to someone who lived in East Germany which was under communist control from 1945 until 1989. That was an important year — I remember seeing footage of the Berlin Wall come down — a wall built to keep the slaves of communism out of the free side of Berlin.

Ari, look. Capitalism is not necessarily a perfect system, but communism is less than that. Simply for the fact that humans are greedy and want to be better than one another. A person will not put themselves at a lower priority than the community.

Greed is evolutionary. Look in nature and you'll find greed everywhere. The being who has more has a higher chance of survival.

That’s a fact. Even in animals at a feeding trough some will push others away.

Pigs are "competition" eaters.

A hog will eat less if alone and much more if another hog is introduced to feed from the same trough.

You are 100% correct

Greed and envy are inherent traits in ALL animals.

Yup.

Comparing this to the other argument I'm having currently, I'd do this all day.

It’s not greed. It’s selling surplus to help others. I do things my employer doesn’t have time to do, and he pays me wages in return. Every time someone sells me something I need he is doing me a service providing what I can’t produce for myself. Communism has greed in that people who won’t work expect to be provided for by those who do.

They are giving me what it’s worth. Employers are entitled to a reward for their service in providing employment. Now you are probably thinking that employees deserve the profits but that’s not true. Employers often go YEARS without a return for what they invested in their money and work, so the profits they receive are their compensation for providing jobs for others. You probably believe you are entitled to a share of employers’ profits, but that’s not true at all unless you are investing your own money in the business and are willing to take pay cuts or go into personal debt if the business you work for has to, you aren’t entitled to anything more than the wages you agree to.

Once again you show how selfish communism is. You want all the reward of work but not the risk of investment, and for others to lose the fruit of their labor to give to you when you won’t work.

If you want to know what you are worth go to work for yourself.

Well, communism isn't rewarding for harder work. If you work harder I capitalism, you get more.

Work and ownership are closely tied together.