Let disabled workers opt out of the minimum wage?

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It's sort of an interesting idea. I actually just had a woman come into the restaurant I work at trying to convince the owner to create a job for a disabled person for a few hours a week folding boxes or something. The problem is that at this place all of us do a bit of everything, so there really aren't any odd job type tasks that we could hire such a person to do, and certainly not that we'd pay $8.65 an hour for; it simply would not make economic sense for us to do so. Now if we could pay someone less to do less work than we normally get for our minimum hourly wage, than maybe we could make an arrangement, but that's not currently allowed under the law and so we can't be flexible there.

Even though I am not surprised by that, I am also not sure that this kind of arrangement would ever become common enough where the law would make a huge difference. I mean, if we removed the minimum wage altogether, it would also probably help some odd people who are willing to do less and work for less, but.... a wide variety of very different contracts is a legal hassle.

The problem is that if employers had unilateral wage-setting power, as if that were the case there wouldn't be a race. They'd be at the bottom already. The issue isn't that employers are now "greedier", but really that market conditions have changed where unskilled labor has less market power compared to the past.

If the market has changed in such a way that a significant segment of the population is unable to fully participate, the market must be regulated to be more free.

The so-called right to work for less than slave wages is an evil concept. Labour markets are rigged anyway with NAIRU and other interventions designed to squeeze labour's share.

Their ability to participate hasn't decreased. The demand for their services has. I am unsure how you would regulate demand.

NAIRU is a theory, you know that right? Calling NAIRU an intervention is problematic. You can talk about policies based upon NAIRU, but these policies are only evil to the degree that NAIRU, the hypothesis, is wrong.

The demand has merely shifted to other places where people are working for less.

This is why I have no problem with the concept. Lower minimum wages aren't meant to have you slave away on it forever, but to allow you to get your foot in the door. As long as it's balanced by disability checks I'm all for it.

Arguably. The issue with that is that trade to third world countries isn't that large as a part of the economies of developed nations, but the decline in real wages has been relatively large. This (and other considerations) have pushed most economists to accept that the real culprit is technology, not trade.

No matter what though, the problem still will remain. If we set up tariffs for the purposes of protecting local wages, we will be stagnating the economies of these areas thus preventing global prosperity and arriving at a conclusion less efficient than other distributionary policies for the problems within our own nations. If the issue is technology, then the problem will basically be the same. If we tax computers and other forms of technological capital, we will be stagnating the world economy, reducing global prosperity, and our conclusion will be less efficient than other distributionary policies.

NAIRU is more than a theory, it's a policy. When unemployment is too low measures are taken to increase unemployment. They say the economy is overheating. NAIRU has nothing to do with frictional unemployment, that is a convenient fiction invented that depends on forgetfulness. That is there used to be 2% unemployment. If 6% unemployment are all people shuttling from job to job then how to explain the 2% unemployment of the past?

abolition of the minimum wage through the back door?

one by one, other minority groups could get the same offer (eg. ex-cons, long term unemployed, over 60s, over 50s..), perhaps the definition of sonme of these groups could be laxly enforced (like the 'medical' marihuana cards that anyone can get) then any restriction on the what lower minimum could be accepted could gradually be relaxed...

a young person on the dole recieves £55pw after rent (the 'poverty line' is around £125) - thats barely enough to eat well and keep the heating on. In a race to the bottom they would climb over each other to work full time even if it only meant a few notes more, and in doing so weaken the defense against poor conditions for every low paid worker.

Last edited by psych on 18 Jun 2011, 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nope, there are policies based upon NAIRU, but NAIRU itself isn't a policy.

You'll have to point out the time periods.

That's exactly what these subhuman freaks want. They want slaves, and they want them to be GRATEFUL.

To the contrary, real wages, at least in the U.S., have not declined, but have actually slightly increased over the last few decades:

http://visualecon.wpengine.netdna-cdn.c ... rnings.png

If you include nonwage benefits, the increase has been more than slight. The only notable periods of decline in real wages were in the 1970s, during the oil shocks, as would be expected for periods when a, or perhaps the, major raw material input to the economy suddenly became more expensive.

Globalization has not caused any decline in real wages, true, but that's because there hasn't been any decline in real wages.


Or to put it another way, you think you can maintain pay for current low paid workers by preventing those on the dole from improving their lot. That wouldn't seem like good policy to me, even if things did work that way.