The Concise Guide to the Minimum Wage

by Jim Cox

 

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Introduction

  1. What's the Effect of the Law?
  2. Why Not Raise It Even Higher?
  3. "People Have to Have a Livable Wage"
  4. On-the-Job Training
  5. "How Could Anyone's Labor Be Valued at Less Than the Minimum Wage?"
  6. Minimum Wage is Actually Higher than $5.15
  7. "It's Easy for the Middle Class to Call for Abolishing the Minimum Wage"
  8. Organized Labor
  9. Impact on Young, Minorities
  10. Fixed Number of Jobs?
  11. Racism
  12. Supra-Marginal Firms
  13. The Sub-Minimum Wage Law
  14. 300,000 vs. 600,000 Jobs Lost
  15. Crime
  16. Mandated Wages, Not Mandated Jobs
  17. "Businesses Can Afford It"
  18. The Card-Krueger Study
  19. The Monopsony Model
  20. Current Pay in the Market
  21. What is the Source of Wages?
  22. Individual Freedom

References

About the Author


22. Individual Freedom

If there is supposed to be one country on Earth where the individual enjoys the freedom to direct his own life it is the U.S. What business is it of state or federal governments to dictate to a worker the wage at which he will be allowed to work? If one individual is willing to work at a wage of $4.00 per hour and another individual is willing to hire this person at $4.00 per hour it is entirely and solely their business. It takes an appalling level of arrogance for a third party to come in and threaten them at gunpoint (which is what a law ultimately boils down to) to prevent this mutually satisfactory and voluntary arrangement.

 
 

The Concise Guide to the Minimum Wage © 2003 Jim Cox