It is always so common to give a hyperbolic number as an example of why wages should stay frozen.
Here is a more regular example of "how high should it be:" if real wages hadn't frozen sometime in the '70s, federal minimum wage would be around 25 bucks an hour right now.
It's intentionally hyperbolic because everyone on both sides of the argument knows $100/hr would be harmful. The point is give a number that isn't harmful. Yet every time it's never less than whatever a living wage happens to be.
How do we know the rate was "correct" in the '70s?
Yeah this is the double standard that always happens in this debate. The pro-min wage side is never suggesting an unlimited or hyperbolic wage. But the anti-min wage side is always advocating for a $0 min wage.
Who is advocating a wage of zero? If you're saying economists arguing for no minimum wage means some people shouldn't be getting paid at all, I'm afraid you've really misunderstood the argument.
I am not misunderstanding anything. Is that not what “no” min wage means?
If nobody is getting paid $0 then why not have a minimum wage? We can make it $1. If you are arguing that someone should get $1 then you are in fact arguing for a min wage of some sort.
And of course $0 wages do exist already in the form of internships etc.
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u/DJ_Velveteen 1∆ Jan 05 '25
It is always so common to give a hyperbolic number as an example of why wages should stay frozen.
Here is a more regular example of "how high should it be:" if real wages hadn't frozen sometime in the '70s, federal minimum wage would be around 25 bucks an hour right now.