Speakeasy forum: More on the minimum wage

Would a "livable" wage take the place of most welfare?

parents, schools and the rest of society would do more to teach ecnomimics of living and less about screaming, whining and giving in.

But I was just wondering how many of those Katrina victims who've been living in Hotels and motels, courtesy of the government, have been trying hard to find jobs and so forth.

It's a matter of degree, rather than a black or white issue. The basis for minimum wage laws and wage and hour laws is to protect workers from being exploited, but the question is, how much protection should there be? Certainly the minimum wage law has as its purpose helping workers to achieve a living wage. The question is, how much help should the government give the workers? Should the law guarantee a living wage, or should it just assist the worker in achieving a living wage as it does now? It is no surprise that the liberal side wants to give the worker more help and the conservative side wants to give the worker less help. That doesn't necessarily mean that the conservative side is less compassionate because its basic argument is that providing too generously in the minimum wage will be bad for the economy and that a growing economy is more beneficial in the long run to everyone, including the poor workers.

There has always been a movement to make the minimum wage law provide a living wage which would give the worker enough money to live on, but it has never gotten very far. There is also a movement to eliminate the minimum wage law altogether. That movement also has not made much headway.

In my opinion, it is unlikely that the minimum wage law will be changed a great deal from what it is, as least in the near future, although I personally favor increasing it.

Obviously, the issue brings up the question of how much the government should be involved, how much socialistic type legislation we should have to protect the worker. Thus, the issue often generates more heat than light, as we may see in this thread. It is a foregone conclusion that there will be a good deal of criticism of the minimum wage law on this forum, with not much argument from the other side. That is unfortunate for both sides because it prevents there from being any legitimate debate or discussion. Too much one-sidedness makes for a kind of pep rally atmosphere that is unwelcoming to those who disagree.

in the past. I see no reason why that would change.

I can't find anything in the US Constitution that gives the government the right to dictate to employers what they have to pay employees. That is not a legitimate government function.

The majority of economists believe that a minimum wage is a bad idea.

My daughter is a junior in High School. Last summer she managed to find two jobs that were both considerably above minimum wage. This is NOT a If she was old enough to work in restaraunts she could have found many more. I find it hard to believe that people can't find good paying jobs.

... if to "promote the general welfare" don't you think any government program should be "tested" to see if it does that or not? Shouldn't it have to be PROVEN to rather than detractors having to disprove?

Since such a tiny percentage of those MW advocates CLAIM to help are actually impacted either way by the MW do away with it. Almost all welfare programs would be done away with if subjected to this test.

Lotsa words and little sense. There is NO basis in the Constitution to grant government the right to dictate what employers must pay their employees. To make it so you have to distort the Constitution beyond all recognitioin.

And it is a fact that the majorty of economists consider minimum wage a bad idea. And guess what? It is.

...

Building bridges: can be legit if for interstate commerce

Distributing wealth: correct, do away with it

Welfare: ditto

Throwing citizens in jail without due process: Referring to?

Taking over property to give it to companies: Well, that's what you get with a liberal SCOTUS

That silly nonsense is still being repeated? Please!

... but Kelo is the decision from the left wing of the court. Two of which still voted against even the equal protection part that seven in the majority voted for. I guess you're not for equal protection huh?

thank the activist judiciary who read so much into what the Constitution actually does allow through the enumerated powers.

That is why activist judges should never be allowed behind the bench and why strict constructionists are necessary. It is also why when the judges do decide on Constitutional issues they need to consider the speeches made and wording used in the Congressional Record when the subjects were initially debated.

Socialism and creeping Communism by judicial fiat is NOT what the founders had in mind.

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...."
--James Madison

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."
--James Madison, Federalist No. 45

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."
--James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792 (Madison 1865, I, page 546)

"The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch. ... The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. ... It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression...that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped."
--Thomas Jefferson

"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance."
--Thomas Jefferson

I had an applicant for my condo who was very up front about her situation. She had a 17 y.o. daughter and "oops" got pregnant by her ex-husband while they were considering reconciling. That apparently didn't happen but she was having the baby. She had Section 8 housing assistance, which although I never had a tenant with it, I understand means a portion of the rent is paid directly by the state to the landlord on tenant's behalf. She was told by social services to quit her job because then she would qualify for all sorts of bennies. This makes NO sense at all to me.

To the extent there is welfare, it should always be structured so that those that do work are not penalized but rather rewarded for doing so.

Evie