15$/hr will do?

Proponents of a 15$/hour minimum wage claim this wage will provide a worker with a livable wage. This is a little hard to swallow this as an across-the-board benchmark as standards of living change across the country. Even within Minnesota, the wage may be considered a decent amount in the outstate areas to just above starting wage in the cities. Price setting or creating artificial bounds in economic systems inevitably creates more problems than they solve.

Setting a floor based on a threshold of a plucked-from-the-air minimum standard of living assumes that each worker is supporting themselves on this one job. High school kids would receive the wage and they are supported by parents. The stay-at-home spouse of a family unit might pick up a job for a while for extra cash, not for the core flow of funds to pay the bills. These workers may not want to work to the level of getting paid a higher wage, or as teenagers, not be qualified for a higher wage. So, let’s set these two groups aside.

For the workers who need to support themselves on one job, a minimum wage could provide them with a bit more money. But there would be a loss too. Pricing is a source of information. If a full-time worker cannot command a sufficient wage in the market to meet their basic expenditures, people should be asking why– not topping off their salary and sending them out in the world. What would they need to obtain the job at a better wage, and what would it take to get it: education? a connection? flexible hours?

Say there was a pattern of a whole set of workers who were unable to secure sufficient work. And it became clear that the reason was geography, transportation, or language skills. Would it make more sense to supplement their wage with a stipend until the restricting constraint was lifted? Would it make more sense to overcome the reason for below-par wage offers so that they may be confident of higher wages in the future?

Don’t mess with the pricing system. It’s valuable information. It provides all the insights necessary to help people progress towards self-sufficiency.