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This makes no sense at all. Without the assistance, these employees would be homeless. And who will hire someone who is homeless?
Nice false dichotomy
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The employers would either have to be willing to hire homeless, or pay more, if there were no benefits.
If you understand the concept of opportunity cost (and I know you do), you will understand that the availability of assistance results in higher wages being paid, not lower.
Again, when market wages are paid (as they always are), there is NO moral hazard.
The best argument for $15/hour is that it would save taxpayers billions of dollars. When wages are too low, the working poor qualify for SNAP cards, EITC tax credits, housing vouchers, and other government assistance. These benefits are means tested, which means the higher the wage, the fewer in government benefits the low wage earner qualifies for.
The Repubs in Congress who vote against raising the federal minimum wage are actually voting to INCREASE public dependence of government aid programs, and voting to INCREASE welfare and assistance expenditures. If they really want smaller government, a good place to start is through a minimum wage that people can live on without needing government help.
For many, it is a true dichotomy, not a false one. Not everybody can just move back with their parents...
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Originally Posted by TaxPhd
If you understand the concept of opportunity cost (and I know you do), you will understand that the availability of assistance results in higher wages being paid, not lower.
Opportunity cost is only the relevant consideration when you assume that they can continue living and be employable either way (i.e. not homeless).
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Originally Posted by TaxPhd
Again, when market wages are paid (as they always are), there is NO moral hazard.
For many, it is a true dichotomy, not a false one. Not everybody can just move back with their parents...
Lots of other alternatives to homelessness.
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Opportunity cost is only the relevant consideration when you assume that they can continue living and be employable either way (i.e. not homeless).
Nope. Opportunity cost is relevant to every decision. And in the context of this discussion, the relatively high opportunity cost of working absolutely serves to increase wages.
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Non-sequitur.
Not at all. But with that comment, it's looking like you don't understand what moral hazard is.
Not currently but in China before WWII the going rate of pay for a Rickshaw driver wasn't enough money to the driver alive. It wasn't a standard of living, it was a standard of dying.
Oh sorry, I thought we were talking about the United States today.
So I guess when you agree US min wage isn't causing workers to die here.
Available to a few, not to all, in HCOL areas at least.
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Originally Posted by TaxPhd
Nope. Opportunity cost is relevant to every decision. And in the context of this discussion, the relatively high opportunity cost of working absolutely serves to increase wages.
How is opportunity cost relevant if one of the options is not even really possible? The choice has to actually exist in the first place. If the wages cannot sustain life, then the condition does not hold.
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Originally Posted by TaxPhd
Not at all. But with that comment, it's looking like you don't understand what moral hazard is.
Elaborate please. Until you have actually laid out the argument, it is a non-sequitur.
The ready availability of assistance programs results in higher wages being paid, not lower. The opportunity cost for a no-skill worker to go to work is pretty high, and it can take a lot to tempt them off the couch and away from their video games.
That is absolute nonsense. There are no assistance programs that make people so comfy that they prefer to stay home, but I'm sure you will counter that with a Heritage Foundation list of 150 + welfare programs out of which almost no one receives more than 2 or 3 benefits.
I worked with poor women with young children in Nevada and every one of them would have gladly accepted employment if they had transportation and childcare. A family of three in Nevada receives a whopping $383 a month in welfare, subsidized housing has a 6-10 year wait list in most areas so they either sofa surf, share an apartment or live in weekly motels. The only other benefits they receive are SNAP, medicaid and if they have an infant- WIC which has a cash equivalent of about $40. There are real obstacles to overcome for a poor person, especially one with small children to entering the workforce. And there is a 5 federal limit to welfare benefits and many states limit it to 12 or 24 months.
That is absolute nonsense. There are no assistance programs that make people so comfy that they prefer to stay home, but I'm sure you will counter that with a Heritage Foundation list of 150 + welfare programs out of which almost no one receives more than 2 or 3 benefits.
I worked with poor women with young children in Nevada and every one of them would have gladly accepted employment if they had transportation and childcare. A family of three in Nevada receives a whopping $383 a month in welfare, subsidized housing has a 6-10 year wait list in most areas so they either sofa surf, share an apartment or live in weekly motels. The only other benefits they receive are SNAP, medicaid and if they have an infant- WIC which has a cash equivalent of about $40. There are real obstacles to overcome for a poor person, especially one with small children to entering the workforce. And there is a 5 federal limit to welfare benefits and many states limit it to 12 or 24 months.
Look, you can't expect to have agreement on a thread titled "fifteen dollars an hour makes plenty of sense" when you are arguing with people who won't necessarily benefit from that move. I can see the trouble with expecting any agreement on things where the spread of benefit isn't across the board, We've come to think of every piece of legislation as a thing that will bring good to all, not so of course, but that doesn't seem to alter that errant perception.
Higher wages aren't always going to be seen as a boon to all.. Somebody has to pay those wages and they will fight it all the way to the law making process, AND, upon losing, they will simply ask their customers for the difference, never for a moment considering less for themselves. Smaller margins are considered to be the antithesis of all business management training, it defies all the notions of free market cheerleaders who think they have a kind of lock on the system's success mechanisms that are in fact nothing more that political clout manifest. When that clout has a greater spread we'll see some real difference in the way business operates with regard to compensation.
When the dumbest of the dumb have told me of their fears of a higher min wage I know the bluster radio types have done their magic upon the American consciousness, fear, and eventually loathing, replaces any logical views. Nobody lives their lives in a direct reflection of the various charts and graphs drug out to make a point about the right or wrongness of the min wage, the whys surrounding the opposition to it (higher min) stems from a base economic view of things that includes the notion of a severe inequity being a normal part of any society. I'm hoping for higher wages in America, I don't care what the opposition thinks on that score, one needn't be a PHD to have some heart..
Oh sorry, I thought we were talking about the United States today.
So I guess when you agree US min wage isn't causing workers to die here.
As long as the top doesn't forget to feed the bottom ...
Supply and demand for labor does not guaranty that wages will sustain life.
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