Human Worth and Minimum Wage in Long Beach
It's been a while since I've posted anything up in a while. So here is an old essay I wrote. Unfortunately, the people of the Republic of California did not see things my way and passed the initiative.
2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
There has been much local talk about the “Living Wage” initiative here in Long Beach. Here are two articles from the Long Beach Post.
http://www.lbpost.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2000000157%3A30-000-signatures-to-be-submitted-to-city-hall-today-for-living-wage&catid=85%3Anews&Itemid=650
http://www.lbpost.com/business/2000000168-long-beach-hospitality-workers-one-step-closer-to-living-wage-contentious-campaign-to-come
The argument is a classic one. Because the workers cannot make a living off their wages, their wages must increase and if you oppose this, then you are greedy and heartless scum. I do not have a sophisticated education in economics. The only economics course I completed was my mandatory economics class in High School. But this is one of the few instances my public school education did me well (because I had an awesome teacher, Mr. Sackett). The principles I’ve learned then I still arm myself with today.
First, the main argument put forth by the proponents of this particular initiative commits the fallacy of ad misericordiam, or appeal to misery/pity. I suppose that is all the needs to be said about that. With that being their only argument, why should we vote for this? There seems to be no reason. Secondly, the initiative does more harm than good. When we see government trying to fix prices in the market, disaster is on the horizon. The minimum wage law here (an amazing $13/hr!) will create more poverty, not less of it.
If the government forces a business to pay it’s workers $13/hr, that business will not hire anyone who is worth less than $13/hr. This makes the workers job harder. They get fired, and are unemployed. Now this person trying to make a “living wage” is out of job, and instead of getting paid some money, she gets paid no money at all. Therefore, the employee should be against this initiative.
Now, a way out of this is for the business owner is that he will just jack up the rates of his product. He won’t lose any money because that difference he will refuse to pay. He will make us consumers pay instead. Now, I realize that most of my Facebook readers are people in my church. I also realize that my church has a huge conference in San Antonio coming up. Imagine this then. The initiative targets mainly hotels. If the hotels the 20,000 Christians are staying in over in San Antonio for the conference jack up the price say an extra $5/room, and there are four Christians to a room, that means that we are paying a whopping $25,000 extra to cover the difference. We should not be ok with that. Therefore, consumers should be against this initiative.
But then, if we are not ok with that, if we as consumers are not ok with this price difference, we will not buy their product. But if we don’t buy their product, their business loses money. If they lose money, they will not keep as many workers. Cuts will need to be made. Therefore, unemployment will rise, and this puts the worker that this initiative was meant to help in a worse situation. Again, this initiative will cause unemployment.
Now there is the moral argument. If a business cannot exist without paying despicable wages, some people proudly argue, then such greedy companies should not exist. This is not sound. First, when a company goes out of business, the market loses that product. We consumers are deprived of the possibility of that product. Secondly, any people who would have been willing to work for “despicable wages” is unemployed. And finally, flowing from the previous point, there is no such thing as a “despicable” wage. If an employee really cannot live with the wages offered by the business, then employee goes elsewhere. No one is forced to stay in that business. In this particular case, no one is forced to work for the hotels and airports. So why do they stay? Agreeing to work is a contract. There is an agreement in place that says, “I, the worker, am willing to give you my services in exchange for your money”. Therefore, there is complete consent. The worker has therefore judged that there is nothing wrong with this contract. If the worker did see something wrong with this contract, he would have never agreed to it. It isn’t like the business said, “We’re gunna pay you X” and then went around and said, “JK! LOL!” after they started working. No bait and switch here. The consent shows that there is nothing immoral about the wages.
And if it is the case that the worker leaves, then that opens up an opportunity for someone else to be employed. And if it the case that many works leave a business, then that business has no productivity, and the business owner, if he can without going out of business, will raise the wages in order to attract labor. Again, this is contractual. There is a mutual agreement.
In one of the articles I linked, it said that the initiative was motivated after a study showed that the people who worked for the kinds of businesses that this initiative targets lived in bad conditions. Granted. I already showed how raising the minimum wage will not help. But lets say this initiative goes through. What will we see in the study? What we will probably see in the future is some people say that the initiative was a successes because the living situations improved. But that will only be true if they no longer count unemployed people who previously worked for such businesses as a part of that demographic! But if this study follows that same group of people after this initiative, then some situations will improve, while others will be in poverty as they were therefore out of a job. Therefore, we see the gap between the rich and the poor widen. If you are a leftist who has uttered words like that before, you too should be against this initiative.
2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
There has been much local talk about the “Living Wage” initiative here in Long Beach. Here are two articles from the Long Beach Post.
http://www.lbpost.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2000000157%3A30-000-signatures-to-be-submitted-to-city-hall-today-for-living-wage&catid=85%3Anews&Itemid=650
http://www.lbpost.com/business/2000000168-long-beach-hospitality-workers-one-step-closer-to-living-wage-contentious-campaign-to-come
The argument is a classic one. Because the workers cannot make a living off their wages, their wages must increase and if you oppose this, then you are greedy and heartless scum. I do not have a sophisticated education in economics. The only economics course I completed was my mandatory economics class in High School. But this is one of the few instances my public school education did me well (because I had an awesome teacher, Mr. Sackett). The principles I’ve learned then I still arm myself with today.
First, the main argument put forth by the proponents of this particular initiative commits the fallacy of ad misericordiam, or appeal to misery/pity. I suppose that is all the needs to be said about that. With that being their only argument, why should we vote for this? There seems to be no reason. Secondly, the initiative does more harm than good. When we see government trying to fix prices in the market, disaster is on the horizon. The minimum wage law here (an amazing $13/hr!) will create more poverty, not less of it.
If the government forces a business to pay it’s workers $13/hr, that business will not hire anyone who is worth less than $13/hr. This makes the workers job harder. They get fired, and are unemployed. Now this person trying to make a “living wage” is out of job, and instead of getting paid some money, she gets paid no money at all. Therefore, the employee should be against this initiative.
Now, a way out of this is for the business owner is that he will just jack up the rates of his product. He won’t lose any money because that difference he will refuse to pay. He will make us consumers pay instead. Now, I realize that most of my Facebook readers are people in my church. I also realize that my church has a huge conference in San Antonio coming up. Imagine this then. The initiative targets mainly hotels. If the hotels the 20,000 Christians are staying in over in San Antonio for the conference jack up the price say an extra $5/room, and there are four Christians to a room, that means that we are paying a whopping $25,000 extra to cover the difference. We should not be ok with that. Therefore, consumers should be against this initiative.
But then, if we are not ok with that, if we as consumers are not ok with this price difference, we will not buy their product. But if we don’t buy their product, their business loses money. If they lose money, they will not keep as many workers. Cuts will need to be made. Therefore, unemployment will rise, and this puts the worker that this initiative was meant to help in a worse situation. Again, this initiative will cause unemployment.
Now there is the moral argument. If a business cannot exist without paying despicable wages, some people proudly argue, then such greedy companies should not exist. This is not sound. First, when a company goes out of business, the market loses that product. We consumers are deprived of the possibility of that product. Secondly, any people who would have been willing to work for “despicable wages” is unemployed. And finally, flowing from the previous point, there is no such thing as a “despicable” wage. If an employee really cannot live with the wages offered by the business, then employee goes elsewhere. No one is forced to stay in that business. In this particular case, no one is forced to work for the hotels and airports. So why do they stay? Agreeing to work is a contract. There is an agreement in place that says, “I, the worker, am willing to give you my services in exchange for your money”. Therefore, there is complete consent. The worker has therefore judged that there is nothing wrong with this contract. If the worker did see something wrong with this contract, he would have never agreed to it. It isn’t like the business said, “We’re gunna pay you X” and then went around and said, “JK! LOL!” after they started working. No bait and switch here. The consent shows that there is nothing immoral about the wages.
And if it is the case that the worker leaves, then that opens up an opportunity for someone else to be employed. And if it the case that many works leave a business, then that business has no productivity, and the business owner, if he can without going out of business, will raise the wages in order to attract labor. Again, this is contractual. There is a mutual agreement.
In one of the articles I linked, it said that the initiative was motivated after a study showed that the people who worked for the kinds of businesses that this initiative targets lived in bad conditions. Granted. I already showed how raising the minimum wage will not help. But lets say this initiative goes through. What will we see in the study? What we will probably see in the future is some people say that the initiative was a successes because the living situations improved. But that will only be true if they no longer count unemployed people who previously worked for such businesses as a part of that demographic! But if this study follows that same group of people after this initiative, then some situations will improve, while others will be in poverty as they were therefore out of a job. Therefore, we see the gap between the rich and the poor widen. If you are a leftist who has uttered words like that before, you too should be against this initiative.
Do not
let the government dictate how much you are worth. Let a free market
give you ability to determine how much you want to be worth.
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