why not two minimum wages - one for students and teens, one for working adults?

I’ve always thought that this would be fair and economically feasible - two different minimum wage specifications. One would apply to people that are currently being claimed as dependents - working students and high schoolers whose parents are still housing them and claiming them as dependents on their taxes. They would be the lower paid workers - keep it capped at $5.15 or whatever it currently is.

For adult workers and those that aren’t being suppored and claimed on taxes by parents, the wage would be raised to a legitimate living wage.

Why is or isn’t this doable? Isn’t it better and more feasible than an across-the-board raise?

“Oh, sorry, we only hire students and teens. They’re cheaper.” That’s why.

For people who think raising minimum raise is a good idea: If we can just legislate away poverty, then why don’t we pass a law saying that everyone makes $50K a year?

Once you understand why that wouldn’t work, then maybe you’ll understand why we can’t just legislate away low wages and ignore the reality of how the economy functions.

This “two-tier” minimum wage system actually exists in the current US system. It’s specifically designed to permit short-term, under-20 additional workers (e.g., summer-vacation schoolkids) to be paid less than the standard minimum wage. It is generally known as a “training wage”, “subminimum wage”, or youth minimum wage:

This doesn’t apply, however, to part-time long-term workers, even if underage, who are employed for more than 90 days at a time.

And Debaser, I don’t see anyone here suggesting that low wages can just be “legislated away”. That’s a very oversimplistic picture compared to the real issue involved here: namely, can we find a balance point for a legally mandated “wage floor” that is neither so low that it keeps workers in grinding poverty, nor so high that it makes low-wage employment economically unfeasible? So far, the federal minimum wage seems to have done a reasonable job of providing such a “wage floor”, although at present it’s probably on the low side of the balance point.

More specifically, the OP asks whether we could make the system more workable with a two-tiered wage floor, one for dependent underage workers and a higher one for adult breadwinners. I don’t see why some variant of such a system couldn’t work, since in fact we’ve got a limited version of such a system already in place, and it seems to work okay. I don’t think it would eliminate the problems of raising the current MW directly to an adult “living wage”, though.

So, you don’t want to “legislate away poverty” as I said. You do however, want to have a “legally mandated wage floor” that keeps workers out of “grinding poverty”?

You say tomahto, I say tomato.

So the only options we have are 1) a solution that would waste tons of money and destroy the economy or 2) do nothing at all as minimum wage continues to decrease in worth? There’s no possible intermediate step? That’s just ridiculous.

Debaser: So, you don’t want to “legislate away poverty” as I said. You do however, want to have a “legally mandated wage floor” that keeps workers out of “grinding poverty”?

Yes. How do you figure those to be the same thing? Subsistence-level wages for full-time workers will not eliminate poverty for the unemployed, for example.

Just so the other side is represented, I think this assesment depends on how you define your terms. Does grinding pverty mean simply below the official poverty line? Below that line for a considerable time? Or something else.

Also, I think there are those who disagree that the minimum wage has done anything at all to address the number of people in “poverty”.

Quick link(PDF Warning) I don’t want to get into a whole discusion about the effectiveness of minimum wage levels. But let me quote that article just a bit.

Here is another paper which looks at several studies.(PDF Warning again) It concludes:

I found this as a counterpoint. It does not look at poverty and is more of a column than a study. However, it does summarize several studies (I assume honestly).

And in conclusion,

Just in case your still awake, I found one more pdf which goes into quit a bit of detail on the debate between economists over this issue.
Here it is

But you also have to understand how the Gov’t works. Besides buying votes with rich people’s money, people who make $1.00/hr (assuming no min wage) are of no value to the gov’t as they won’t make enough to pay taxes, and mos tlikely will be getting public assistance. You need a certain income level for you to be of any good to Un. Sam.

The minimum wage is really nothing more that public enforcement of a social policy to be carried out by private institutions. If your real concern is poverty then it is more efficent (both in economic terms of efficieny as well as efficiently attempting to achieve the goal of alleviateing poverty) to simply tax on an ability-to-pay basis and then give out the benefit on a needs basis.

Of course we can legislate away poverty! It’s basically our only only hope in the matter. What institutions do you think can take care of poverty? Churches? Businesses? The kindeness of the human heart? I can give you a list of countries that hasn’t worked in…

They just installed these new crosswalks in my town that consist of little lights embedded in the street. This is a just a year after they made the traffic lights talk- telling you what street you are on and how long until you can cross the street. Are you telling me that a nation that can spend untold millions on crosswalks is totally unable to fight the poverty of it’s own people?

Here are some statistics on child poverty rates in developed nations. At 22.4%, America is second only to Mexico. Countries with extremely high social spending have almost none (Sweden 2.6%). Countries in between, like our neighbor to the north, have much better figures (Canada 15.5). The government is entirely capable of reducing and even wiping out poverty. Americans work harder and America is richer than just about any country on Earth. There is no reason for us to have the poverty we have.

One of the problems with reducing rates for teens is that not all teens are working for spending money. Where I grew up most teens were expected to pay all their expenses- including lunch money, bus passes, school activities, etc. A sizeable percentage of teens were expected to work to contribute to the household income and help make the rent and raise their siblings. Then there are issues like young college students who must earn their living but count as dependants because their parents give them so much money for tuition.

Anyway, I think the main problem is that it’s just wrong to pay differently for the same work. Teens should get a fair wage for the labor, just like everyone else.

Ok, not to disagree with you, but do you have a cite for this? I find it hard to believe that Americans are the “hardest working” nation on earth. Seems to me the poor nations work harder and work longer hours. 18 hour days, 7 days a week, all for 5 dollars a month. (made up of course, but probably not hyperbole)

Um, as a teen and a student I was (functionally) a working adult, responsible for providing my own food, shelter, clothing, and transportation. (Thanks, Mom and Dad. :rolleyes: ) This would have totally effed me and left me in poverty ghetto instead of being able to get away from my situation and go to university. I don’t think that’s too fair…but then, I got away from minimum wage jobs as quickly as I could and went to cook/waitron/barback jobs in better restaurants.

As others have noted, it would also create a market for “pocket money” teens vs. people at poverty/sustanence level, but then that already exists, anyway. The problem is that most minimum wage jobs don’t need or require much in the way of skills and any monkey can be trained to do them, so people in the low end of the skills pool get screwed…which is just economics, however morally repugnant that may be.

A better route to take than just blinding upping the minimum wage is a two pronged approach of extensive remedial and job training along with real economic stimulus to create jobs that require advanced skills. No able-bodied and capable 40 year old should be dependant upon a burger flipping job at McDonalds. But that approach doesn’t lend itself to simple, legislative solution.

Stranger

As I recal, statistics show that Americans get less vacation time than any comparable country. That may have been a part of what even sven is referring to.

No that’s life. It’s because society is not willing to pay for the labor. Name the last 5 items you bought that were made in the USA? If someone wants to make more money then they need to do work that is worth more.

Amen. I bring up that exact option in every MW thread. The MW is a blunt instrument and causes a distortion in the employment market. If the goal is to fight poverty, that can be done directly thru welfare. Then you’ll can target the beneficiaries and measure the exact cost.

A two tiered system proposed in the OP would also distort the market and put older people at a disadvantage. The current system that allows short term employment at sub-MW for younger folks makes much more sense.

You sure it’s not? I don’t think you’re right.

What’s the connection here?

I forgot it was that simple. :stuck_out_tongue: “Find a job that’s worth more!”

I suggest that everytime someone argues against a minimum wage, they must be forced to live for a year AT that minimum wage.

I’ve been poor. It really, really sucks. I still refer to those years as my “ramen years”- since that was basically all I ate. I lived in a one-room “inefficiency”, which had no air conditioning (this is in Texas), and which was heated by a freestanding gas stove. I’d inherited a car from my mom, and I drove it around without insurance or tags. I couldn’t afford a phone. I couldn’t afford new clothing. School? Not a chance.

It’s a soul-crushing situation; you desperately want to earn more money, but the only jobs that are available to you pay exactly the same amount. If my employers could have paid me less, they would have- the majority of the raises I got were due to minimum wage being increased, and that didn’t keep up with inflation. At the poverty level, the employers know that they’ve got you over a barrel- you simply can’t afford to quit.

I know the standard argument for abolishing minimum wage is that companies will have to then pay more to attract employees- that any employee who’s paid less at one company will quit, and go to a higher-paying job instead. I submit that that wouldn’t happen- the base salaries would go down, and inflation would then eat people alive. At any given company, there are only so many jobs; the higher-paying employers would only be able to hire so many people, and everyone else would have to suck it up with the lesser-paying jobs. The only people who would benefit from abolishing minimum wage is the people who are already making more than minimum wage.

re: a two tiered system…why not a system where you get paid not for the labor you do but for the number of dependants you have…or a system where you get paid based on the bills you accumulate.

I get a little nervous whenever we talk about discriminatory wages. After all, I have a husband who holds a well paying job, two children…certainly my coworker who is the only wage earner for his family with four children needs the money more. Its impossible to say that a college student needs the wages less than a working adult. I used to work with an independantly weathly fry cook - he worked in the winter and would take the summer off. (Eccentric man).

Magiver: * If someone wants to make more money then they need to do work that is worth more.*

This doesn’t really address the problem at a general level, though. Suggesting that all low-wage workers should just get better jobs is kind of like what Debaser said about suggesting that we should just legislate a universal minimum salary of $50K a year. The economics of it would be impossible in real life.

In real life, many workers simply don’t have better-paying jobs available to them. And many industries depend on having a large pool of low-skilled labor that is willing to work for very low wages. If full-time work at those wages doesn’t provide enough money to live on, what should we do about it?

If you think the correct answer is “Nothing”, you’re free to say that. “They need to get better jobs” is just a euphemism for “Nothing”.

John Mace: The MW is a blunt instrument and causes a distortion in the employment market. If the goal is to fight poverty, that can be done directly thru welfare. Then you’ll can target the beneficiaries and measure the exact cost.

I’m not sure it’s that simple, John. Remember, another goal of the minimum wage is to link a decent standard of living with paid work, at least in the case of the able-bodied. We want most able-bodied people to be working, because it makes the economy as a whole more productive and keeps the tax base broad. The reason we make private employers carry out part of our social policy of income redistribution, via a mandated minimum wage, is because it’s employers who provide work, and work is what we want to reward.

The MW “market distortion” operates by artificially increasing the attractiveness of work, because as a society we want most people to be motivated to work. If poverty were mostly fought by means-tested welfare programs rather than by wages, the incentive to work for wages would be reduced. (This is exactly the problem that inspired the movement for welfare reform, in fact.)

We want even low-skilled able-bodied people to be motivated to get and keep full-time jobs, so we artificially “overvalue” their labor by putting a legally mandated wage floor under it. Yes, this introduces a distortion in the labor market considered in isolation, but in the bigger picture, it reflects the value of having a very large percentage of the potential workforce committed to full-time work.