Sorry. I didn’t mean to be misunderstood. You can certainly support both: my argument is that full employment is a superior way of raising wages of workers, compared to raising the minimum wage. I’m not saying raising the minimum wage is bad. I’m saying full employment is better.
How is it greedy or selfish to pay someone only what value they contribute? Anything above that is simple charity. Again, I walk into a store needing $50 worth of food. I only have $10 in my pocket. Is the store greedy or selfish because they only provide me with $10 worth of food?
If you were receiving a living wage, it wouldn’t be an issue. 
Well, to be completely honest with you I have no problem with the concept of paying someone precisely what they contribute. What I do have a problem with is trusting the objectivity of that amount to someone who has made as many callous remarks as you have made.
How do you feel about mandatory overtime pay?
If someone doubles his or her contribution, does that mean his pay should be doubled also? Or is that being greedy?
It’s better if you can keep the economy permanently in a state of full or near-full employment, but that’s not been something we’ve ever been able to count on.
Or legislate. Any fellow refugees from the 1970s remember Humphrey-Hawkins?
Increasing the minimum wage, OTOH, is politically do-able, not pie in the sky. And once it’s increased, it stays increased, at least nominally.
Maybe, but maybe not. How much would I have to pay someone else to do the same job?
It isn’t left to me to decide. If a person can command a higher wage on the market, he can go work for my competitor if I am being unreasonable with my salary offer. There is no need to trust me. The market will adequately pay his wage and if I am a cheapskate, I go out of business because nobody will work for me.
Yes, well, that all works well in theory but in reality, in a bad economy, you can’t just “go get another job”. Do you remember what I said about my opinion of people who use the term, “the market demands”?
Please cite. BLS has all the stats you need to support your claim.
FWIW I was a “quit” in 2009 and 2012.
Well, that IS the theory. Markets aren’t always good. Sometimes there is s glut of jobs and sometimes a glut of workers. If everything was the same all the time, it wouldn’t be a “market”.
So what is erroneous about UltraVires’ example of market forces here?
If entry-level jobs are paying more than Federal minimum wage in a high cost-of-living and/or low-unemployment area, it’s because of market demands, not “compassion” of the employers!
Say two people started the same entry-level position ten years ago, one is now in a management position earning 50K+, the other still struggling at or near minimum wage when not on unemployment. What caused this? What’s the difference between these two? Perhaps the successful one recognized that “the market” would reward personal responsibility/improvement?
This thread is filled with arguments based on absurd hypotheticals and exaggerations.
The idea that someone in a low-paying job has simply not chosen “personal responsibility/improvement” is itself an absurd hypothetical and exaggeration IMO, and appears to be an extraordinarily simplistic perspective.
Of course, and some may be stuck in those hypothetical situations rendering them unable to advance. But you’re arguing the inverse here – I didn’t claim that the loser didn’t make the right choices, only that the winner did.
A distinction without a difference.
Kinda reminds me of the humorous statement someone once added to a notice concerning membership in a new sports league:
"Failue to participate does not preclude you from being declared “a loser”.
True. I love how you deride the word compassion.
Well in your extremely hypothetical situation if someone who works the same job for 10 years and makes no advancement, you leave out one factor: motive.
If you work 10 years and make no advancement you are probably suffering from some type of developmental or psychiatric condition. Possibly raised in dire poverty with little/no skill set or work ethic. But any of these categories will be rare. It is rare that people work 10 years and make no advancement. Your better tract would of been at 10 years one person is a manager at 50K and the other worker has received only 2 raises and has no responsibility beside clocking in every day. That is a scenario that actually happens a lot. I know it steps away one step from the minimum wage debate but it is still within the realm of different rates of pay.
BTW, I love how your hypothetical exaggeration is supposed to be taken seriously but yet you dismiss this thread because it is “filled with arguments based on absurd hypotheticals and exaggerations.”
Your post is full of callousness and indifference and just a little bit of arrogance. That’s what I love about these threads, they are good at exposing people’s core values.
Hey John, how you doing, hope you are having a good day.
This comment is not directed at you individually, it is directed at the overall concept of “the market demands”.
People use that word like it actually means something. But if we had 8 year old kids running sewing machines, if that were somehow legal, if that was what the “Market Demanded” you KNOW people would denounce it and cry out against it. If the people who swept the floor at Wal-Mart, Target and Sam’s Club were paid $2 an hour, if that were legal and that was what the “Market Demanded” people would be really upset. Well, most people would, some people wouldn’t care. Most would care.
And that is my whole point. When I hear “The Market Demands” I translate that:
I am mildly bothered about this but not enough to say/do anything about it.
Just as I translate the term “Minimum Wage”: We would pay you less but we can’t because that is illegal.
You want a cite that it is more difficult to find a job/good job when the economy is bad/unemployment is high???