Does the Minimum Wage Hurt Workers?

The minimum wage sounds nice on the surface: workers earning $8 per hour would certainly be better off if they were earning $12 per hour instead. But economics professor Antony Davies explains that this view of the minimum wage overlooks an important detail: The minimum wage does not force employers to pay a particular wage to every worker; it forces employers to pay a particular wage to every worker they choose to keep. While the minimum wage may be well-intentioned public policy, it often huts the very workers most in need of our help.

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[FletchforFreedom]

I would agree that the effects of the interference are paramount which is why the solution is removing those deleterious effects. It is not an "interference" to REMOVE the interference that creates the supply, license and residency quotas. This would be hugely beneficial. Unfortunately, the other intervention has never done anything but make matters worse. Government intervention is the chief cause of rising health care costs and private charity has always done a better job than government.

[MegaAstrodude]

It's not always a question of more or less interference, but rather what the effects of the specific interference are. When some interference takes away from one group a lot to the point that the group no longer has the opportunity to get a good standard of living, other interference can improve their living standards. A better healthcare policy would involve government intervention to help patients afford healthcare and also remove the supply, license, and residency quotas.

[jfultz100]

We need strong unions again. My Friends mom said that in 1980 she made 10 dollars an hour working at the Crayola Factory. That was a lot higher than the minimum wage at the time. If the minimum wage was really reflective of what things cost know I bet it would be a lot more than 7.25 an hour. Probably more like 20 dollars an hour. So an unskilled factory worker these days should probably be making more like 30 dollars an hour. That just goes to show you how underpaid we all are in this economy.

[FletchforFreedom]

The solution, however, cannot be "more interference". Interfering with doctors and patients both merely makes things worse for both without solving any problems. There is no problem of "big bucks" associated with the ordering of scans. That is, instead, the result of earlier government interferences specifying specific levels of liability over and above the tort system that have made errors of omission so costly and incentivized excessive testing.

[FletchforFreedom]

Okay, I concede the point that the AMA (and the pseudo-regulatory power granted to it by the state) has created what amounts to a guild system. I will even concede the point that the Tea Party has not attacked it, being primarily concerned with any number of other more direct state abuses. Attacks upon the AMA imposed restrictions on the supply of doctors has, however, been a staple among the classic liberal/libertarian schools of thought from which the Tea Party grew.

[MegaAstrodude]

The supply of healthcare is controlled by the AMA and other guilds who prevent more people from becoming physicians and nurses. This prevents healthcare from getting its Henry Fords who'd lower the cost of healthcare for everybody, but it lines the pockets of a few doctors and administrators who can make big bucks by ordering scans at will and withholding vital medicine until the scans.

At this point, more interference could help because one should interfere with doctors and patients equally.

[FletchforFreedom]

Not when their "data" is at odds with that of sources recognized as reliable. That they are agenda driven is not the problem; that their claims are inconsistent with other reliable sources is. That they are agenda-driven is merely the obvious explanation.

[MegaAstrodude]

So that organization isn't credible ever?

[FletchforFreedom]

Qatar has virtually no poverty. Again. the "article" you reference is nothing of the kind. Again, BOTH items appeared on The Guardian's BLOG and were NOT reported by The Guardian. Rather, The Guardian BLOG referenced an unreliable REPORT from an agenda-driven organization. The whole thing is bogus.

[FletchforFreedom]

As the Tae Party didn't attack the Guild Socialism in the healthcare system because (obviously) no such "Guild Socialism" exists and has steadily attacked the government interventions that have restricted supply (laws against interstate competition, mandated coverages that drive up prices and prevent consumers from tailoring policies to their needs, Medicare/Medicaid laws making pro bono care illegal, reporting requirements that massively drive up costs), how does further interference help?