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Discussion Membership
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Who pays a living wage?Who should pay to bring low wages up to a minimum level? Suppose the Acme Widget Company needs people to work the widget assembly line inserting part A into part B. The job takes no special training. Dozens of people without current employment are available to do the job. So whose responsibility is it to assure that people are able to take home what has come to be known as "a living wage"? Does the responsibility fall on all of society? Does the responsibility fall on only those businesses whose work require only strong shoulders or minimal training? If responsibility falls to all society, then companies should pay whatever people are willing to work for and the difference should be funded from general tax revenues and, for each worker, made up using a negative income tax. On the other hand, if responsibility for providing "a living wage" falls to businesses whose work requires no special training, then the burden to help falls unequally on society. The minimum wage is a tax on only those businesses whose work needs no special skill. In this, our current model, the high tech business located next door to Acme Widgets, and who pays premium wages to find workers with the correct skills willing to work for them, has no social obligation to people without work skills to bargain with. Trust Albany and Washington to be either unwilling or unable to address the real issue: Who should pay to bring low wages up to a minimum level? Trust them only to argue about how much a living wage should be. [Macro error: Can't find a sub-table named "commentIt".]
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