do labor laws keep the unskilled unemployed?

[DucatiMonster696]

Minimum wage laws have the effect of cutting off the bottom rungs of a ladder. If you are tall enough you dont need the bottom rung, but if you are short on skills you will the bottom rung.

Minimum wage laws make all jobs worth less than minimum wage illegal.

And if you raise the minimum wage level to levels which make it include skilled jobs you accomplished this effect for these jobs.

Now imagine if these laws were applied to college professors in that every college professor's salary in the US had to be raised via a similar law to $90,000 dollars a year no matter the course being taught.

Well then one could logically surmise that in the due course of time schools would only higher professors who are worth at a minimum 90,000 dollars a year in salary because to hire anyone worth less than that would be a gross waste of a school's financial resources.

Furthermore in no time this artificial salary increase would also decimate the job opportunities of professors who are not worth $90,000 dollars a year (for whatever reason you can come up with in the end) and would eventually lead to increases in costs to colleges paying this artificial high salary sum for these professors enforced upon them by such a law. Thus for all the instructors hired at this non-market rate created by a "minimum salary" law for professors the added costs would be passed onto students via higher tuition fees and the job opportunities for many a college professor would be significantly reduced if they do not meet up to the higher employment bar set up by a higher minimum salary law in which no college professor is allowed to earn less than $90,000 dollars a year.

 

[OverVolt]

I think they do. Walter Williams said that blacks, most of whom have less education than whites, had higher employment rate than whites did before minimum wage was applicable to all jobs and that there is no stopping discrimination.

Labor unions don't work because the management always wins out (the CEO has the final say as long as the shareholders think he is doing a good job and management will just ask for more if they have to pay the laborers more), the members of unions have to pay money to get their benefits, and then their employment plus the cost of their benefits keeps new employees out (especially immigrants).

Like having tariffs on everything, labor unionization of everything would result in prices being the same for everyone at best and a disaster at worst.

Labor legislation is a revolt against the natural order of things IMO.

I'd rather be put in my natural place shining shoes for a half a dollar an hour than be trying to bust my ass trying to get a job that would pay me more than my labor is worth.

Companies want to pay you as little as possible. Shareholders remember? Labor unions started because of unequal pay, remember?

Anyway Milton Friedman thinks the minimum wage increases unskilled unemployment, you are right in that respect. Overall though, without labor unions we'd be working in 1900's coal factory conditions for 16 hours a day (or whatever amuses the factory owner)

 

[Atreus21]

I think they do. Walter Williams said that blacks, most of whom have less education than whites, had higher employment rate than whites did before minimum wage was applicable to all jobs and that there is no stopping discrimination.

Labor unions don't work because the management always wins out (the CEO has the final say as long as the shareholders think he is doing a good job and management will just ask for more if they have to pay the laborers more), the members of unions have to pay money to get their benefits, and then their employment plus the cost of their benefits keeps new employees out (especially immigrants).

Like having tariffs on everything, labor unionization of everything would result in prices being the same for everyone at best and a disaster at worst.

Labor legislation is a revolt against the natural order of things IMO.

I'd rather be put in my natural place shining shoes for a half a dollar an hour than be trying to bust my ass trying to get a job that would pay me more than my labor is worth.

Minimum wage certainly does.

 

[zephyrprime]

Canadian provinces have a higher minimum wage than in the US but their unemployment rate is lower than our own.

Labor laws probably do increase unemployment but not by much since that minimum wage isn't that high. There's another thing that keeps unemployment at a certain level and that is capitalism itself. It is more profitable to have some unemployed people present to keep labor costs down rather than increasing the marginal employment rate to increase production. The additional amount of unemployment created by the minimum wage probably isn't much given the fact that the enactment of the minimum wage law hardly had any effect on unemployment.

Of course, none of what I said will have any affect on Anarchist's opinion since he has already made up his mind and chosen a beliefset that comforts him and justifies his existential indignations by providing a nice scapegoat for him in the form of a powerful government bogeyman that is always acting to keep a man down.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Canadian provinces have a higher minimum wage than in the US but their unemployment rate is lower than our own.

Labor laws probably do increase unemployment but not by much since that minimum wage isn't that high. There's another thing that keeps unemployment at a certain level and that is capitalism itself. It is more profitable to have some unemployed people present to keep labor costs down rather than increasing the marginal employment rate to increase production. The additional amount of unemployment created by the minimum wage probably isn't much given the fact that the enactment of the minimum wage law hardly had any effect on unemployment.

Of course, none of what I said will have any affect on Anarchist's opinion since he has already made up his mind and chosen a beliefset that comforts him and justifies his existential indignations by providing a nice scapegoat for him in the form of a powerful government bogeyman that is always acting to keep a man down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZESxdKCfUes

 

[Anarchist420]

Canadian provinces have a higher minimum wage than in the US but their unemployment rate is lower than our own. Labor laws probably do increase unemployment but not by much since that minimum wage isn't that high. There's another thing that keeps unemployment at a certain level and that is capitalism itself. It is more profitable to have some unemployed people present to keep labor costs down rather than increasing the marginal employment rate to increase production. The additional amount of unemployment created by the minimum wage probably isn't much given the fact that the enactment of the minimum wage law hardly had any effect on unemployment. Of course, none of what I said will have any affect on Anarchist's opinion since he has already made up his mind and chosen a beliefset that comforts him and justifies his existential indignations by providing a nice scapegoat for him in the form of a powerful government bogeyman that is always acting to keep a man down.

That's a logical argument, honestly, but I'm pretty sure that most employers would rather pay a dollar an hour than $7.25 an hour.

The min wage would have to be a little bit more than doubled for it to be more than supplemental income.

It's not realistic to expect every worker to have a living wage. There are too many people here who would just waste it. Some old people who have worked from their 30s until retirement age get social security and they still can't live independently. As Harry Browne pointed out, the govt is just breaking peoples' legs then giving them a cast and saying "if it weren't for the govt, you wouldn't have a cast"... Obamacare is a prime example of that.

 

[fskimospy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZESxdKCfUes

Maybe Anarchist420 is TFL Bill!

That would explain a lot.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Another example of how overly regulated labor markets can kill employment. This time from Spain.


"Spain Is Beyond Doomed: The 2 Scariest Unemployment Charts Ever"

http://www.theatlantic.com/business...e-2-scariest-unemployment-charts-ever/275324/

Spain's labor market problems fall into two big buckets: too much regulation, and not enough education. It's almost impossible for companies to get rid of older workers, which creates a horribly bifurcated labor market. There are permanent workers who can't be fired, and temporary ones who can -- and are. Indeed, as Clive Crook points out, about a third of Spain's workforce are temporary workers who enjoy few protections and fewer opportunities. Companies go through these younger workers without bothering to invest much in their human capital, because why would they? These temporary workers will be let go at the first sign of economic trouble. Young people get stuck in a never-ending cycle of under-and-unemployment since firms are always hesitant to hire permanent workers who will always be on their books.

 

[desura]

You know, one thing that I've always wondered is why do pockets of poverty exist in the USA?

Like, for instance, Camden NJ is one of the worst places in America. But it is really close to some of the biggest markets in the USA, New York, Philadelphia, Boston.

I honestly believe that if you could pay the China wage in Camden, NJ, you could make goods to sell to these huge markets rather than making them in China and then shipping them over an ocean and then across the nation on trucks and trains all the way to NYC.

So yes, I do believe taht the min wage prevents employment.

 

[piasabird]

O'bammacare is also limiting the number of hours a min wage employee can work without paying for their Health Care. So many people at Wal-mart get their hours cut due to O'Bammacare.