How about a bill that pegs Congress' pay raise with minimum wage?

That's true but employees still have the power to choose to work or not work or strike. The problem with creating an artificial floor is that it denies market forces and in the long run reduces job prospects since companies want hire employees they can't support there is less incentive for companies to take risk of providing more jobs if they can't hire them at an amount they can still support. So yes companies want to stay competitive. If they don't then many of them dissappear and the job market shrinks.

Yes I am but this is related to the argument regarding complaints about illegals depressing wages and taking jobs away from other Americans. It goes back to creating an artificial floor that makes it more tempting to resort to an underground economy. Its true many illegals work above min. wage but at the same they keep wage pressures down to market levels while the idea of a min. wage is to keep wages at an artificial level.

And Congress would very likely do that. Like everyone else I grumble about Congressional pay but again this is more than a full time job, not to mention their own money that many congressional candidates put into their elections and the lost opportunity costs for campaigning. To be a congressional candidate you pretty much have to quit your job. So I don't begrudge them getting paid well.

 

My problem with letting market forces determine wages, rather than setting a floor is that market forces already flavor the corporation. Large corporations receive tax breaks, benefits, perks all from various govts. that want to lure those businesses to their area.

So the corporations aren't affected purely by market forces at work. They are in effect being subsidized by the govt. To then tell employees that their income will be affected by market forces alone, and corporations will have extra subsidies and don't have to regulate by market forces alone just isn't right.

 

I agree totally, keep the govt. out of the whole mess.- then market forces will work.

 

Again, market forces don’t work without government regulation. Ideal capitalism is like ideal communism, nice in theory but something that would never work in reality and that would only result in anarchy. So the questions becomes, what level of government involvement is the right amount? And that question requires people to think about what they want their society to be, what they want it to look like and how they want it to function.

Minimum wage is a bit of a tricky one because on the one hand most would want to peg it at a level that would allow the worker to provide the basics for themselves to live a healthy and dignified life and to realize their full potential, if this isn’t it, by going back to school. From an economic and moral standpoint this is would be, I suspect, what most people in western, first world countries would say should be the minimums in society. But, there are also very simple jobs that kids do fo after school money. Should minimum wage laws apply to these jobs too? Are there jobs that shouldn’t be required to pay a living wage?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage

 

That has historically been shown to lead to exploitation. Without govt. regulation cars would not be equipped with seat belts, there would be monopolies controlling prices, children would be working long hours, our food would not have standards, and we would be eating unhealthy meat, employers could force 70 hour work weaks, not give time off, have unsafe work environments, build unsafe homes etc.

This stuff has already happened. It was tried before and it led to the above conditions. There must be govt. regulations.

 

There's been a lot of minimum wage debate seeping into other topics the last two days so might as well revive this one.

 

I hope they don't raise it to high. Its gonna happen for sure. GWB already said he can work with the new dems on immigration and min wage.

 

well look who's back.... how long until texx makes a return?

edit: click the poll results, and look in the yes choice... i guess clutch let him back in?

 

I don't think that it should be so rigid. Minimum wage and Congress pay both need to go up.

I think that the members of Congress should have their pay doubled and then there should be strict criminal penalties or forfeiture of office for accepting lunches or anything else from lobbyists. They should be forbidden from any sort of revolving door type of activity for 10 years. The worst thing is to have underpaid public servants who have to use their position to seek money on the side to support themselves. It is just begging for corruption.

What the Congress people do is important and it should be as free from corruption as possible. Their pay is a pittance compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars of tax payer's money they can kick back to special interest groups.

 

I have a sort of off-topic question. How is enforcing the Federal Minimum Wage Constitutional? I know that we don't really have Federalism anymore, but we still have a Constitution that says it protects it. Unless a worker's job carries him/her across a state border, how does the Federal Minimum Wage not conflict with the Commerce Clause and the 10th Amendment?

 

^ An excellent point. My own understanding is that it is under the commerce clause and equal protection clause since wage rates affect interstate commerce in an interconnected economy and that it would be discrimanatory for the Fed. to set a min. wage for people only doing work accross state boundaries while not guarenteeing that for all.

I agree though these seem like stretches to me but unfortunately federalism has been highly stretched already.

 

Commerce clause grounds certainly extends to minimum wage guarantees but as Sishir points out, its somewhat confusing since theoretically it shouldn't apply to companies that operate within one state only.

But then again, if we were to strictly enforce the commerce clause, you could bet that a lot of anti-terror legislation that place mandates and directions for local and state authorities would be struck down since it violates police power authority which is supposed to be strictly within the domain of the states. Also, a lot of environmental regulations would be illegal since those regulate companies that also operate within one state.

Oh well, at least the commerce clause isn't as expansive as it used to be. Up until 1995, the supreme court didn't even really require any justification for passing law under commerce clause grounds. And later, they limited it even more but the court is intentionally avoiding the question out of fear of basically messing up a ton of laws that are probably illegal.

 

Here's a novel idea...Congress only gets a pay raise if approved by the American voters.

We pay their salaries, so we decide if they get a raise or not...

 

which would pretty much mean, they'll never ever get a pay increase again.

 

Way off topic...

I agree. My favorite was the medicinal mar1juana ruling. It was said that the Federal Law against medicinal mar1juana was Constitutional because that prescription mar1juana would compete against illegal mar1juana that might have crossed state lines.

 

...and your point is?