RE: Mentally retarded people worth $2 dollars per hour
January 31, 2014 at 5:15 pm
(This post was last modified: January 31, 2014 at 5:22 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(January 31, 2014 at 1:44 pm)Chad32 Wrote: We shouldn't make an exception for the minimum wage for disabled people. If they can work, there should be something they can do that would be worth it. If they can't then they can get funding. Just because some people are like that doesn't mean we should abolish minimum wages.
I think minimum wage is the wrong idea. The business should pay the worker the minimum of what his work is worth to the business and how much the business might have to pay to hire someone else to do the same work.
If you add $10 an hour to the business's revenue, but there are 10 other people similarly qualified as you and willing to take the job for $8 an hour, it is obviously unreasonable for the business to pay you $10. If no one else is willing to take the job, the business obviously would be willing to pay up to $9.99 for your services.
If you take the take the job for $8, but it takes $10 to not starve to death or suffer some other generally agreed level of intolerability, then the government, in the interest of social stability, should make up a fix portion of the $2 difference to you out of general tax revenue, since the benefit of keeping you from agitating for the overthrow of established social order is diffuse and benefits everyone.
The government should not pay the entire $2 difference, because if it did so, then it becomes indifferent to you whether the business paid you $8 or $6, because the government would make up any difference. This encourages you to collaborate with the business to offload the burden of your salary to the government. So the government ought to pay for only a portion of the difference, to encourage your not to form a sort of wage cartel with your business at the expense of the government..
The government should have an idea how much it costs to enable someone to survive and not agitate for social instability, and should make up the difference between that and what the worker can get paid.
The government also ought to understand that how much various qualifications are worth on the job market, for example for running something of a clearing house for available job openings at private businesses and the pay being offered, so it has basis to estimate what the size of that difference should be.
