The Failed Moral Argument for a "Living Wage"

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Mises:

The Failed Moral Argument for a "Living Wage"

 

SEPTEMBER 4, 2015Ryan McMaken

 

With Labor Day upon us, newspapers across the US will be printing op-eds calling for a mandated “living wage” and higher wages in general. In many cases, advocates for a living wage argue for outright mandates on wages; that is, a minimum wage set as an arbitrary level determined by policymakers to be at a level that makes housing, food, and health care “affordable.”

 

Behind this effort is a philosophical claim that employers are morally obligated to pay “a living wage” to employees, so they can afford necessities (however ambiguously defined) on a single wage, working forty hours per week. This moral argument singles out employers as the morally responsible party in the living wage equation, even though the variables that determine a living wage go far beyond the wage earned.

[Valin]

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Big Bernie Brings You THE TRUTH

 

A Living Wage

 

Millions of Americans are working for totally inadequate wages. We must ensure that no full-time worker lives in poverty. The current federal minimum wage is starvation pay and must become a living wage. We must increase it to $15 an hour over the next several years.

 

Join Bernie's campaign to stand up for higher wages for American workers.

Add your name

 

We must also establish equal pay for women. It’s unconscionable that women earn less than men for performing the same work.

 

Millions of American employees have been working 50 or 60 hours a week while receiving no overtime pay. That is why Bernie has been encouraging the Obama Administration to ensure that more workers receive overtime pay protection. The Administration’s new rule extending that protection to everyone making less than $947 a week is a step in the right direction. It is a win for our economy and for our workers.

 

Lastly, we must support and strengthen the labor movement to ensure that workers have a say in their own economic futures. That’s why Bernie has been a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to organize and bargain collectively.

 

(Snip)

 

 

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The Minimum Wage: Getting to $15

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

 

SEPT. 4, 2015

 

The debate over the federal minimum wage in the nascent presidential campaign is really two debates: one among Democrats and one among Republicans.

 

Democrats are divided on how much to raise the minimum, currently $7.25 an hour.

 

Hillary Rodham Clinton has spoken favorably of aDemocratic bill for a raise to $12 by 2020. Senator Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, as well as several congressional Democrats, support $15 an hour by 2020. Is $12 adequate to ensure a minimally decent living? Would $15 be economically feasible?

 

Going to $12 by 2020 would bring the minimum more in line with historical benchmarks, including wage and price inflation. But it is a stretch to believe that $12 an hour in 2020 would provide a minimally decent living.

 

In 14 states and Washington, D.C., the cost of living for one person is already near or above $12 an hour, according to data compiled by economists at M.I.T. In most of the remaining states, one person now requires an hourly wage of $10 to $11 to eke out a living.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/opinion/the-minimum-wage-getting-to-15.html?ref=opinion

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Minimum Wage Chickenhawks – Big Labor Edition!

By Brother Bob 1 Comment

 

Sat, Sep, 5th, 201

5 238 views

It’s been a while since I’ve written about Leftist Minimum wage Chickenhawks, but that doesn’t mean that lefties have stopped being hypocrites on the subject! In honor of the labor Day holiday weekend, this seems like a great time to call out some of the bigger names. Since it’s been a while not all of these stories are new, but as they say, the beat goes on, the beat goes on…

 

Los Angeles passed a minimum wage law, and you’ll never guess the evil, greedy entity who wants no part of it, via the LA Times:

 

The path toward passage of Los Angeles’ landmark minimum wage increase took a rocky detour Wednesday, as business and elected officials reacted harshly to a last-minute push by labor leaders to create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2015/09/05/minimum-wage-chickenhawks-big-labor-edition/

[Draggingtree]

 

FACT SHEET: It’s Time to Raise The Minimum Wage

EPI & NELP FACT SHEET It’s Time to Raise the Minimum Wage

The minimum wage in 2014 was 24 percent below its 1968 level despite the fact that U.S. productivity more than doubled over that period and low-wage workers now have much more experience and education than they did back then.1 Now is the time to address this historic weakness in the minimum wage by raising it and lifting the earnings of low-wage workers.

 

Across the country, there is overwhelming momentum in favor of raising wages for our nation’s lowest-wage workers. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia, as well as 21 cities and counties, set their minimum wages above the inadequate federal rate of $7.25. The Fight for $15 campaign has galvanized workers across the country to demand the kind of living wages that they are entitled to receive. As a result of their actions, cities such as Seattle and San Francisco have raised their minimum wages to $15, and some of the nation’s largest employers have raised wages even in the absence of federal action. http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/fact-sheet-time-to-raise-the-minimum-wage

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SO MUCH FOR THIS YEAR’S LABOR DAY

Home many more jobs will be destroyed via Obama-style wage diktats?

 

By Ralph R. Reiland – 9.8.15

Of course, nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages,” President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address on Jan. 20, 2015.

 

But rather than those higher wages being produced in the free market by way of higher productivity, better education, improvements in products and services, higher sales volumes, better efficiencies, improved U.S. competitiveness and expanded American exports, Obama called for a quicker and more centrally planned solution to deal with income stagnation, low wages, and economic inequality.

 

“And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, try it,” Obama said. “If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.”

http://spectator.org/articles/63997/so-much-year%E2%80%99s-labor-day