# Why can't I volunteer to get paid below minimum wage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262 "2013-12-02T02:47:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/161 "2013-12-02T21:52:08Z")
I’m trying to envision the ugliness and chaos that would ensue if we shut down the food banks and food pantries and stuck all those families in already incredibly long food lines the homeless line up for…but my mind won’t let me. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/162 "2013-12-02T22:16:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I lack access to scholarly articles right now, but the abstracts show that studies are contradictory on this measure. Even the ones that suggest it’s not effective at reducing poverty, however, seem to suggest that in reality it’s not the most effective means of reducing poverty instead of suggesting that it’s entirely ineffective. I’ll take abstracts that make the points you’re making. Most of the ones I’ve read say its effect on actual poverty is ambiguous. Could increase or decrease it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/163 "2013-12-02T22:43:51Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > I’ll take abstracts that make the points you’re making. Most of the ones I’ve read say its effect on actual poverty is ambiguous. Could increase or decrease it. [Here you go](http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/month113&div=88&g_sent=1), for example. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/164 "2013-12-03T00:43:13Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Anything that is aimed to protect an individual from himself is not “sensible”. Good news! Minimum wage _does not_ protect the individual from himself! Rather, it protects him from the tragety of the privates, and the inevitable race to the bottom present in the inherently skewed relationship between employer and employee. It protects an individual from detrimental societal effects, much in the same way that laws against particularly nasty addictive drugs protect the individual from societal effects like increase in larceny by junkies looking for their fix. > [@Terr](#): > > You’re arguing for abolishing minimum-wage laws, since wages self-regulating would take care of it. Are you aware of the massive bulk of evidence regarding nominal wage rigidity? It’s really quite fascinating. Oh wait, of course not - you’re an armchair libertarian who knows _nothing_. I mean, christ, you think this makes any sense: > [@Terr](#): > > That’s as stupid an argument as it gets. That’s because the content of the 3.8 million number is constantly changing, and so is the content of the 12.5 million number. So you can’t just fit one into the other as if they are something concrete and unchanging. As if when the 3.8 million jobs became filled, suddenly another 8 million would pop up. As if jobs just magically appear from the aether. > [@Terr](#): > > There are more job openings than zero. So people who are looking for work can fill those. > If I don’t have what it takes to do the job, it’s my fault, not the employer’s or the economy’s. Yes. Like if the job opening is in California, and I’m in Kansas. Totally my fault. :rolleyes: I really don’t understand how you can fail to grasp this. I just don’t get it. It’s incredibly simple. If the only job openings are far away from me, and I don’t have the resources (and they are _quite significant_) to uproot my entire life and move to that place, or hell, if I don’t have the cash on hand for gas money or a driver’s license, then that job might as well not exist for me. And this is a big part of the problem. > [@Terr](#): > > Not. Most people are happy to be little cogs in the state machine. …Ugh. Another thread ruined by nonsensical crap like this. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/165 "2013-12-03T00:51:25Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Good news! Minimum wage _does not_ protect the individual from himself! Rather, it protects him from the tragety of the privates Yes, I know. We must restrict the individual’s freedom to benefit “the society”! Oh, and of course, “think about the cheeeldrun!”. Otherwise - “tragety”! > [@](#): > > As if when the 3.8 million jobs became filled, suddenly another 8 million would pop up. As if jobs just magically appear from the aether. You know that job openings eventually fil, right? May take a while, but they do. And then more job openings appear. Almost like magic, ain’t it? ---
**Author:** ![nylaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/74df32/32.png) [@nylaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nylaw)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/166 "2013-12-03T01:02:17Z")
Because then businesses would start requiring you to “volunteer” to work for a lower wage if you want to work there, and then minimum wage would become meaningless. Then, living conditions of people in general would start to deteriorate, exploitation of employees would become even far more common and it would be bad for the economy as a whole because less disposable income means spending less. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/167 "2013-12-03T01:22:03Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Yes, I know. We must restrict the individual’s freedom to benefit “the society”! Oh, and of course, “think about the cheeeldrun!”. Otherwise - “tragety”! Was there a refutation in there, or just more mocking of concepts you either don’t seem to have a firm grasp on or just don’t care about understanding? > [@](#): > > You know that job openings eventually fil, right? May take a while, but they do. And then more job openings appear. Almost like magic, ain’t it? So, taking your model, we should expect a permanent upward slope in employment, right? Like, we should start at some point, and then from there more people become employed, and then more people, and real unemployment should constantly and consistently drop, to the point where it reaches zero. After all, that’s all you’ve modeled so far - people who are unemployed become employed, and new jobs open up. Indeed, were there anything else in the model, it would become virtually unworkable. Of course, this has about as much resemblance to the real world as a model which predicts full meals to fall from the sky ever hour on the hour, thus negating the need for food pantries, soup kitchens, and the like. Obviously, the state of employment is in constant flux. No shit. However, you seem to be ignoring a big factor: that _people lose their jobs and jobs disappear_. Plus, you know, people entering the workforce, people leaving the workforce, literally every detail necessary to make the model adhere to reality in even the most basic manner. You know, this might be the reason why despite people finding jobs and new jobs opening up, unemployment has been so hard to deplete, and there are still so many more people searching than there are available jobs! **Terr** , just stop. Every single thread you participate in devolves into everyone pointing out how incredibly stupid your statements are perceived to be by the general public. For the love of god, give it a rest. Make your own threads if you insist, but please stop doing this. You have no understanding of any of the concepts you talk about. Hell, you just completely ignore the concept of wage rigidity when talking about income, and this is a term so ubiquitous I feel comfortable throwing it out there without citation, like someone would throw out “allele frequency” when talking about evolution with someone else they assumed to have the hint of a clue about the subject. You absolutely have not addressed the problem of people simply not being able to move to where their jobs are. You haven’t addressed anything in this thread - hell, you’ve pretty much admitted that your positions are based on nonsense and faith, with nothing but the “Tu Qoques” of “Yeah, well so are yours” to back it up - which fails because ours _aren’t_. You completely ignore why we have regulation in the first place. You throw away the history of such things as irrelevant, but ignore that corporations are exactly the same amoral organizations they were back then, that the same laws of economics still hold true, and that the bottom line is _still the bottom line_. In fact, “ignore” is kind of a key term here. You “ignore” a lot of things on purpose. I wonder if there’s a term for someone like that… EDIT: Oh right, hardline libertarian. Duh. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/168 "2013-12-03T01:27:05Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Yes, I know. We must restrict the individual’s freedom to benefit “the society”! Oh, and of course, “think about the cheeeldrun!”. Otherwise - “tragety”! > You know that job openings eventually fil, right? May take a while, but they do. And then more job openings appear. Almost like magic, ain’t it? “Magic” is the only way your ideas would work, so I’m not surprised you bring it up. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/169 "2013-12-03T02:09:15Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Make your own threads if you insist, but please stop doing this. Cuz it’s a “tragety”. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/170 "2013-12-03T02:37:10Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > While you may feel that it is “good for you” to accept a job below minimum wage, the state feels (rightly or wrongly) that it is not good for the general society at large. Mostly because, as others have pointed out, employers will take advantage of desperate people “volunteering” for less than minimum wage jobs. But isn’t that a good thing for the desperate person? Obviously, he was unable to get the job at the minimum wage, which accounts for his desperation. SO if he has the desire and wherewithal to get at least some work for some wage, it seems that a minimum wage law would be hurting the most desperate among us. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/171 "2013-12-03T02:43:30Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > But isn’t that a good thing for the desperate person? Obviously, he was unable to get the job at the minimum wage, which accounts for his desperation. That’s not how it works, though. If the company is able to offer a job below minimum wage, and if there’s a pool of unskilled applicants larger than the pool of unskilled jobs, they’ll let those applicants bid each other to zero, and they’ll employ the one that puts in the lowest bid. If they’re not able to offer a job below minimum wage, they’ll instead employ the one with the best skills who’s unable to find a job above minimum wage. In each case, one person gets a job. It’s just that with minimum wage, the one that gets a job gets more money. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/172 "2013-12-03T02:45:54Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If they’re not able to offer a job below minimum wage, they’ll instead employ the one with the best skills who’s unable to find a job above minimum wage. … or they won’t employ anyone at all. Or, in the first case, maybe they will employ two instead of one. > [@](#): > > In each case, one person gets a job. In one case, yes, but maybe two. In the other - maybe, or maybe zero. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/173 "2013-12-03T02:57:14Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That’s not how it works, though. If the company is able to offer a job below minimum wage, and if there’s a pool of unskilled applicants larger than the pool of unskilled jobs, they’ll let those applicants bid each other to zero, and they’ll employ the one that puts in the lowest bid. If they’re not able to offer a job below minimum wage, they’ll instead employ the one with the best skills who’s unable to find a job above minimum wage. > > In each case, one person gets a job. It’s just that with minimum wage, the one that gets a job gets more money. I get that. But wouldn’t it make sense that it go to the person who wants/needs it more? I think that MW laws are well intentioned and do make some sense. But I think they actually hurt workers. I think that by having a MW, many companies just set a bunch of jobs at it and operate with it. But without it, wages would be completely fluid. I think people—employers and employees alike—would see a tighter relationship between _a particular individual_ and the wage he is paid. And when that happens, wage movement would increase (even if still sub MW). And the more people see that movement is more likely and the more employers and managers have to do a constant calculation of how mush Person A is worth to do Job X, I think the better it is for the workers of the lower end of the spectrum. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/174 "2013-12-03T02:59:17Z")
I’d worry about regression to the mean. Would we risk wages consistently slipping downward? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/175 "2013-12-03T03:03:28Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Cuz it’s a “tragety”. Terr. Enough. Your behavior in these sorts of posts is detrimental to good debate. I want good debate. I’m certain most people do. Hence the name of the forum. If you don’t wish to debate but rather wish to do otherwise, do so in the BBQ Pit. No warning issued, but anything else remotely like this - in this or any other thread in Great Debates - will earn one. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/176 "2013-12-03T03:07:49Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I’d worry about regression to the mean. Would we risk wages consistently slipping downward? I don’t think so. Think about if you ran a coffee shop. Would you just always pay the lowest wage you could? Or would you take into account things like not wanting to retrain people because of employees leaving for slightly more money? Take into account how well that new employee does his job? How punctual he is? How reliable? How well he deals with customers? His general attitude? Keep in mind, you’d be competing for both employees and customers. You want the best of the former so you get the most of the latter. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/177 "2013-12-03T03:09:14Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I don’t think so. Think about if you ran a coffee shop. Would you just always pay the lowest wage you could? Or would you take into account things like not wanting to retrain people because of employees leaving for slightly more money? Take into account how well that new employee does his job? How punctual he is? How reliable? How well he deals with customers? His general attitude? > > Keep in mind, you’d be competing for both employees and customers. You want the best of the former so you get the most of the latter. Do you think having a minimum wage interferes with this process? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/178 "2013-12-03T03:21:23Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Do you think having a minimum wage interferes with this process? I do. The MW is an arbitrary number. As is the Living Wage some towns have. The concept of fluidity is largely put aside. Let’s say a job that currently gets MW, say $8.00/hour. I think it would change things in a fundamental way if the next time there was an opening the ad said “Salary: commensurate with experience and desire to do an outstanding job”. I know that if I were looking for a MW type job, that job would interest me greatly. It implies that I’m not “stuck” at some level, that instead, that the wage is determined largely by ME. That’s the way it is with jobs higher up, when there isn’t a union involved. And that works really well. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/179 "2013-12-03T03:42:42Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I don’t think so. Think about if you ran a coffee shop. Would you just always pay the lowest wage you could? Or would you take into account things like not wanting to retrain people because of employees leaving for slightly more money? Take into account how well that new employee does his job? How punctual he is? How reliable? How well he deals with customers? His general attitude? > > Keep in mind, you’d be competing for both employees and customers. You want the best of the former so you get the most of the latter. Yes, these are real concerns as practiced by some real individuals. But the real-world workplace includes many individuals who do not. They look at other factors and paying less money is one of them. We know this is true because it has always been true and is true even in a world with a minimum wage. In virtually all ranges of businesses there are those who compete on quality and service and those who compete on price. Those who compete on price almost universally take the largest share of the market and therefore provide the largest number of jobs. There is certainly enough economic evidence to convince me that minimum wage does not destroy jobs. But even without that, I could look at both history and current practice across a wide range of businesses to convince me that your attitude is oversimplistic and utopian. The world as a whole simply does not work that way. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262/180 "2013-12-03T03:55:04Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > [Here you go](https://boards.straightdope.com/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/month113&div=88&g_sent=1), for example. And here are other results from Google Scholar’s first page [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/ei/40.3.315/abstract](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/ei/40.3.315/abstract) > [@](#): > > We present evidence on the effects of minimum wages on family incomes. The results indicate that minimum wages increase both the probability that poor families escape poverty and the probability that previously nonpoor families fall into poverty. The estimated increase in the flow into poverty is larger, although this difference is not statistically significant. We also find that minimum wages tend to boost the incomes of poor families that remain below the poverty line. On net, the various trade-offs created by minimum wage increases more closely resemble income redistribution among low-income families than income redistribution from high- to low-income families. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7287.2006.00045.x/abstract](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7287.2006.00045.x/abstract)? > [@](#): > > Extending the work of Card and Krueger, we find minimum-wage increases (1988–2003) did not affect poverty rates overall, or among the working poor or among single mothers. Despite employment growth among single mothers, most gainers lived in nonpoor families and most working poor already had wages above the proposed minimums. Simulating a new federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, we find 87% of workers who benefit live in nonpoor families. Poor single mothers receive 3.8% of all benefits. The idea that minimum wage laws helped pull people out of poverty in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is interesting, but I’d like to see cites for that too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-volunteer-to-get-paid-below-minimum-wage/675262.md?page=10)