@theleastofthese
Minimum wage laws worldwide have their roots in
racism. That's not a term I use loosely.
The socialists in the US and elsewhere advocated for minimum wage laws as a means of eradicating child labor and garment industry 'sweatshop' labor where (usually women) were paid by
each piece they produced while also being required to work ten to sixteen hours per day.
The sweatshops were abusive with workers being denied bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, fresh air, and in many cases they were held as prisoners during the workday. Rape and murder were not uncommon in the sweatshops.
But what got minimum wage laws rolling in the US were the migrations of Southern blacks to the North where black people would accept lower wages than white workers.
Black workers were then more desirable for employers and black workers made significant inroads into market segments previously dominated by low-wage white workers and especially Irish immigrants.
In the period 1860-1920 Irish workers dominated manual labor industries like steel and coal mining, they dominated domestic help such as maids and chauffeurs, and they dominated railroad positions especially as staff on passenger rail.
The Great Migration of black people from the South started in about 1910 with the penetration of railroads into the rural south. Black people who were entrapped as sharecroppers (virtual slaves) were suddenly able to board a train and be out of state within hours where they were out of the reach of their former masters.
After World War One many Southern black troops returning from Europe where they were treated well left the South for the North and the West.
By the 1920's minimum wage laws were being advanced by Irish-American Democrats in order to price the growing black population out of the Northern and Western labor market.
In the American West and again in Australia the Chinese and Japanese were also targets of the minimum wage laws. The intent being to price them out of the labor market.
The result was the collapse of the American garment industry. The vast knitting mills of New England fell silent as imports from outside of the US were suddenly competitive despite import duties.
A century later many of the New England cities that had once been powerhouses of the garment trade have yet to recover from the economic damage caused by the minimum wage.
Even with the minimum wage the black workers still outcompeted Irish-Americans for low wage labor intensive work. This is reflected especially in the movies of the 1940's where black porters on trains, black domestic workers, black waiters, and more became standard background actors. Because art was a reflection of life.
The worst aspect of high minimum wage is that it prices low skill workers out of the labor market.
This is reflected in the disappearance of many entry-level jobs since the advent of minimum wage.
It used to be that young people would take a low paying apprentice position to learn a trade such as steel working or glazing. They'd start out sweeping and cleaning and eventually moving into the trade as they acquired skills.
The low pay for the apprentice position was offset by the trade skills the person would learn.
Now the apprentice positions do not exist and the young people have to pay for trade school to get an education they used to get for free. This is good news for the banks who make student loans.
People with low function used to be able to find work sweeping sidewalks, doing gardening, and things like that. Those jobs don't exist anymore and those people are all on welfare of some kind or another.
Finally, minimum wage
causes inflation.
Remember just a couple years ago when the unions were "Fighting for Fifteen!" ?
They got it. And now less than four years later it's not enough.
But why are unions with high paid union members agitating for higher minimum wages?
It's because most union contracts are indexed to the minimum wage either outright or through constructs where minimum wage is an indicator for the Consumer Price Index.
Minimum wage increases then cause payroll increases for union members which in turn causes the amount of dues received by the unions to increase. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Just my own observation here but two hours of minimum wage after taxes/deductions is what it costs for a meal at McDonald's.
In 1970 US minimum wage was $1.60 and two hours of minimum wage after taxes/deductions was about $2.00
A Big Mac meal at McDonald's would have run .65 for the Big Mac, .26 for the fries, .26 for an apple pie, and .35 for a shake. Or $1.52 before taxes.
Now that the minimum wage is $16 per hour in California the price for the same meal is actually a little low and can be expected to rise to where it about equals two hours of employee labor. Which totally erases any gains made with the increase.
This is the thing. If we make the minimum wage $100 per hour then the meal at McDonald's will either rise to around $150 or else McDonald's will fully automate or go out of business.
And then the workers get
nothing.
Example:
The front counter at a McDonald's in 1990:
View attachment 6679
And the front counter at a McDonald's in 2024:
View attachment 6680
