The Patriot Post® · Minimum Wage and Society

If a minimum wage increase would work as intended, it would be great for the disadvantaged, the fringes and the people struggling on the bottom of the economic ladder. But intentions aren’t results. The federal minimum wage has gotten a lot of press lately, with fast-food workers striking for higher wages, states raising their minimums and voters in Switzerland trouncing a proposed $24.65 minimum wage at the polls.

With the policy changes come the arguments: When the government increases the wage, there are benefits for some, but the legislation strips jobs from others. Therefore, the argument implies, there should be no pay increase for minimum wage workers because of the common good.

But this misses the point because it’s not whether increasing the minimum wage would be good for minimum-wage workers or the larger economy. The debate is whether the government should be the one raising it.

Take, for example, fast-food workers. The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a paper in August 2013 that said the majority of fast-food workers are no longer teenagers learning the value of a dollar. Instead, the majority are women over 20. More than 30% are raising at least one child.

Government legislation raising the minimum wage would not help these workers. For example, Microsoft founder Bill Gates says raising the minimum wage will “encourage labor substitution.” Already, McDonald’s is experimenting with automated order-takers in Europe, and most grocery stores now have self-checkout lines.

We should not be hasty in raising the federal minimum wage in part because this nation is so large and diverse. What works well in a high-cost-of-living area like New York City works differently in the hills of Tennessee. Besides, last time we checked, the Constitution gives the federal government no power to control wages. The Tenth Amendment leaves that power to local and state governments. However, the best solution is one where government at any level does not get involved.

The strongest argument could very well be one Thomas Paine made 238 years ago. He begins his pamphlet “Common Sense” (the one which sparked the Declaration of Independence months later) by writing, “Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.”

Society began first, Paine argues, but when it falls short, government is “a move rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world.” Ideally then, business owners would pay employees well enough – as much as is economically viable – so workers don’t need food stamps or to work two jobs.

And employees, from the burger-flipping mom to the CEO, should not work for someone, but for themselves, seeking to be indispensible by constantly improving his or her skills. As William Jennings Bryan said, “The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer.”

We should hope for our society’s sake that the federal government would not need to raise the minimum wage where our moral virtue has failed.