Minimum Wage

See other issues.

We would like to see the minimum wage abolished.

Our basic philosophical problem with the minimum wage is that it undermines our freedom of association. Within the context of regulating interstate commerce, the mandate of a minimum wage to be paid to employees in order to be granted the privilege of engaging in such commerce would seem to be legal, and this is how this scheme was finally rationalized. Despite the legality, the minimum wage is a key piece of the larger puzzle that enslaves us to corporate interests and the dollar. Were we not so enslaved, the minimum wage would be completely unnecessary, but even worse, the minimum wage practically functions to help ensure that such slavery will continue.

The federal minimum wage is required by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). The FLSA is occasionally updated to change the minimum wage. An earlier attempt to establish a minimum wage was declared unconstitutional, but this revised version tied the minimum wage to interstate commerce by requiring any entity engaged in interstate or international commerce to pay a certain minimum wage (among other things).

Bland list of resources by URL:

• http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2013/02/the_social_mobility_fairytale042960.php
• http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2014/02/social-mobility-and-income-inequalityposner.html
• http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/364671/how-minimum-wage-hurts-poor-people-mario-loyola
• http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/394310/minimum-wage-hikes-really-do-hurt-low-skilled-workers-and-reduce-mobility-reihan-salam

• http://econbrowser.com/archives/2014/12/new-estimates-of-the-effects-of-the-minimum-wage

• http://econweb.ucsd.edu/~mwither/pdfs/Effects%20of%20Min%20Wage%20on%20Wages%20Employment%20and%20Earnings.pdf

• http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6qp8x28p#page-1

TODO Write up a position piece and determine which articles above are really relevant to the position, and how.