Minimum wage laws are dehumanizing, insulting, destructive, racist, and evil.

They are trash, and should be thrown out immediately, if not sooner.

Last week, in honor of Labor Day, Tyrone and I released an episode of Haman Nature devoted to hating on labor unions. We discussed their awful history, their pernicious effects, and how they aren’t just a harmless example of “collective bargaining”. If that’s all unions were, I’d have no problem with them.

But they aren’t. They are an excuse to use violence against peaceful people. In that episode I told a story from 39 years ago of my 17-year old self learning first-hand what unions were — and are. Those union jackals made an enemy for life. It’s worth a listen.

But mostly Tyrone and I used the episode as a vehicle to hate on the minimum wage, which unions obviously support — at least in their area of control. We also talked about the racist origins of the minimum wage, which are truly vile.

But one of the worst things about minimum wage laws is just the basic fact that essentially, it’s a man with a gun telling two individuals that they’d better not associate in a way that both find agreeable — or else!

Government cannot make people better off by denying them their demonstrated preference. By definition, both people are made worse off by these laws.

My wife once told me a story about a somewhat “dim” young man who lived above a bodega in New York City and who wanted to work there. The bodega owner knew the man and his family, liked him, and wanted to offer him some kind of a job that could be done by someone with his limited abilities — sweeping up, restocking, and the like.

Unfortunately, there was no way he could afford to pay the kid the minimum wage. He just wasn’t valuable enough to the operation to earn that much. Both parties to the transaction wanted the deal, but too bad. Daddy government says, “No.”

Supporters of the minimum wage say that I’m overlooking all the social safety nets and welfare payments that are available to people who lack the skills to earn what the minimum wage demands. Also, there are wonderful government job training programs to give people the skills to earn more!

Who needs the lowest several rungs on the “economic ladder”? Surely government job training is as valuable as on-the-job training!

Nonsense.

We all know better. “Government job training” is a punchline, not a program. It’s famously useless. It’s a sop to the soft-hearted who don’t know any better. The only “jobs” created by these boondoggles are for government bureaucrats.

And as for the idea that welfare programs will take care of unskilled or low-skilled people until they (somehow) can command a wage equal to that mandated by law, there is a huge incentive problem there. An obvious one. You’d have to be willfully blind not to see it.

Imagine a perfectly functioning welfare system where unfortunates receive $2,000 per month from the government. You’ll also have to imagine that “we” can somehow afford this. Now add a $15/hr minimum wage. If a person works the standard 40 hours per week, that’s $2,400.*

Great! Assuming our welfare recipient has found a way to turn themselves into someone who can provide a business more than $15/hr of value, this person can now get off welfare, right?

Except… would they? Why? Would you?

Remember, they are already getting $2,000 a month. If they take a job working 40 hours a week, they’ll earn an additional $400 a month. That’s an additional $2.50 an hour. Are we really expecting that anyone is going to take a job to earn $2.50 an hour?

I’m not saying it would be foolish to do so. I think getting a foot on the economic ladder will provide big benefits in the future.

But you’ve met people. You know how incentives work. Do you really think many people will cast off their $2,000 per month welfare situation so they can work 40 hours a week at $2.50 per hour so they can improve their situation to $2,400 per month?

I don’t. Talk about working for “slave wages”. All the incentives in such a system are wrong. Plus it’s dehumanizing and insulting.

I think they are more likely, if they are ambitious, to turn to black or gray markets and earn money under the table instead.

Government programs just suck. Everywhere. Always. Every time. They are just awful.

For starters, government programs require theft, so right off the bat they are immoral. Then this particular program/law criminalizes the peaceful act of offering somebody a job at the “wrong” rate. And then, of course, you need new intervention after new intervention to plaster over the calamities caused by the previous interventions.

Again, I am reminded of an old woman who swallowed a fly.

Perhaps we’ll die. I sure hope not. But we are definitely sick as a society, and a huge cause of our sickness is our reliance on government “solutions” that poison us while claiming to cure us.

Let’s stop doing this to ourselves, shall we?

Naturally,

Adam

*That’s also assuming ZERO taxes will be taken from these earnings. In the real world, the situation is even worse.

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