Posts in "Minimum Wage"

BenLevine16's picture
By Benjamin Levine at 4:16PM

Debunking Statist Arguments: The Minimum Wage

The people of the "Occupy" movements certainly have their hearts in the right place.  However, many of their brains are somewhere way off this planet.  Though they tend to diagnose problems of corporatism well, their demands are often ultra-statist, unfortunately aligning quite often with what the Washington establishment wants.  Indeed, in some cases, implementing the OWS demands would be disastrous.  I'll be attempting to debunk these argument one at a time in a series of blog posts.

Argument: We need a living wage!  Debunking liberal arguments, one at a timeRaise the miminum wage to $20 per hour!

Answer: Raising the minimum wage would actually hurt the people that need help the most.  What most people don't understand is that the wage somebody earns is not meant to be an arbitrary number set by government.  Rather, it is supposed to represent the price of your skill.  The price of your skill, then, is valued by supply and demand.  Think of the argument people make about professional athletes -- it offers such a great example.  Football, basketball, and baseball players make too much money, they say, and should receive much less.  But is this necessarily true?


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BrianMUGA's picture
By Brian Underwood at 10:12AM

The Minimum Wage -- the Triple Sin of Statism

Like so many other "Progressive" governmental economic policies, the federal minimum wage can be traced back to FDR and the New Deal, certainly one of the most expansive government programs in the history of the United States. Wildly popular amongst the left and supported by the Republican Party for political points, the minimum wage was first established in 1933 and has continued to plague the American economy ever since, the brief span between 1935 and 1938 in which the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional notwithstanding. No longer are business agreements between employer and employee sealed with a handshake; instead, they are determined by a lawmaker's pen and enforced by the barrel of a gun.

In short, the minimum wage should be abolished, but before moving into the moral and economic reasons surrounding why the minimum wage should be $0.00, the first and most obvious reason resides in jurisprudence - namely, the correct interpretation of Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of our Constitution: the Commerce Clause. As it reads, "[The Congress shall have the Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Careful observers will note that withing the Commerce Clause, there exists only one power delegated to Congress: the power "To regulate Commerce." It is one power which is equally applied to three separate spheres of authority, not three spheres each with their own particular powers.

 Moreover, this clause merely gives Congress the power to regulate commerce between sovereign, political entities, not within them...

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Seth Mann's picture
By Seth Mann at 2:14PM

Economic "Justice" = Widespread Misery

This is shockingly offensive to liberty.  The "expert" explains around 1:40 how a young person's willingness to work for less than minimum wage could created an "unjust" society. Appalling.

H/t LewRockwell.com:

Listen to the BRILLIANT little girl explain to the ECONOMICALLY-IGNORANT “expert” about the evils of minimum wage laws and how the ECONOMICALLY-IGNORANT “caring” NAZI responds.

Matt Cockerill's picture
By Matt Cockerill at 5:15PM

You can never win the game when the state doesn't even let you on the board.

minimum wage

Cartoon drawn by an extremely talented friend of mine -- and fellow libertarian -- at Creighton University. He wishes to remain unidentified.

Justin Page Wood's picture
By Justin Wood at 9:08PM

A Case for Ending Minimum Wage Laws

Today, Peter Schiff, former economic advisor to Ron Paul and President of Euro Pacific Capital, released an excellent video on the case for ridding the Federal Minimum Wage, which is soon to be $7.25 nationally.  He is currently staying at the Bally's hotel in Las Vegas.

In this video, he also releases new information on his run for Senate at SchiffForSenate.com.


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