Minimum wage, a character issue.

[Volobjectitarian]

Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie

So reducing the minimum wage to 50 cents an hour would still be mandated slavery?

Is anyone forced to work in the US?

Slavery is the condition of being forced to labor against your will and for the benefit of someone else, either fully or partially. If partial, that is quasi-slavery, as defined by Frederick Douglass describing his relationship with his master where he was allowed to travel freely, secure what work he could for whatever wage he could, but was then forced by law to tithe a portion of anything he made back to his master...you know, like how taxes work.

But if you don't work, nobody can force you to. So we do have quasi-slavery with our taxation system, but between private individuals, all labor is 100% voluntary, thus whatever wage is agreed upon is entirely voluntary and mutually agreed upon.

[Supposn]

Originally Posted by Joey2k

So lefties, if I am desperately in need of money, and am willing to work for less than minimum wage, you are of the opinion that I should not be allowed to do so, that it is morally superior for me to remain unemployed and broke? ...

Joey2k, from an economic point of view, its preferable that we have government systems unemployment insurance and government becoming the last alternative employer when there are insufficient minimum wage rate jobs. That’s preferable to permitting wages to be driven down. There are many public service tasks that need doing.

The federal minimum wage rate is not among the primary drivers of the U.S. dollar’s inflation. The value of our U.S. dollar continues to decline when the minimum wage is not increased.
The minimum wage rate, to the extent of its purchasing power, reduces numbers and extents of poverty among the working-poor and their dependents.

Without a definite minimum wage rate, indefinite “markets” determined minimum rates would often race to most drastically poor purchasing powers, pulling many other wage brackets down with it.

Respectfully, Supposn

[Supposn]

Originally Posted by Volobjectitarian

... Just economic forces and the employer-employee association that is 100% voluntary in both directions.
According to those forces, the minimum wage then, is whatever an employer and employee agree to in their purely voluntary association. We know these forces work because according to actual BLS facts, ~1.2% of the US workforce makes at or below the minimum wage, and of those that are, the highest percentage are in food & hospitality, and are tipped workers who supplement that wage with tips. Given that, the percentage of people taking home at or below the federal MW is estimated at ~0.6% of the entire workforce. ...

Volobjectitarian, the federal minimum wage rate does not determine wage differentials, but because employers’ common practices of wage differentials are driven from bottom up rather than from top down, the minimum rate bolsters other wage rates.

The minimum rate’s beneficial effect upon a job’s rate, is inversely related to the difference between the minimum and the job’s wage rate. USA employees within the lowest rate brackets do, (proportional to their incomes), receive the most benefits from the minimum rate. Rates within successively higher rate brackets are proportionally reduced, but no wage earner rate is detrimentally affected by the federal minimum wage rate.

I do not doubt there are persons believing or pretending to believe the numbers or proportion of workers earning exactly or approximately $7.25 per hour is germane to a discussion of the minimum rate’s effects upon our nation’s economic and social well-being.
Respectfully, Supposn