Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucbvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!ucbvax!faustus From: faustus@ucbvax.UUCP (Wayne Christopher) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Williams on the Minimum Wage (longish) Message-ID: <1661@ucbvax.UUCP> Date: Fri, 24-Aug-84 01:45:14 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.1661 Posted: Fri Aug 24 01:45:14 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 19-Aug-84 04:02:24 EDT References: <917@phs.UUCP> Organization: U.C. Berkeley Lines: 19 On the minimum wage -- what evidence do we have that a given employer would, in fact, hire more workers if he were allowed to pay them less? Look at it this way: say we have a job that takes a reasonably competent worker a certain amount of time to do, paid at the minimum wage. If he were allowed to pay less, does it follow that he would instead hire more workers who were less competent to do the same job? No, he would just pay the same worker less. Or maybe the reduced labor costs would allow him to make more money, and thus expand his business, hiring more workers and eventually paying more in wages than he would have at the higher wage. This may be so, but I think that the overall effect of a lower minimum wage would be that taken as a whole, less money would get out into the pool of poor unskilled workers. Granted, it would be spread around more fairly, but that is a secondary consideration. Of course, I know nothing about economics, but this just seems to be common sense... Wayne