Minimum Wage Economics and the Debate for Humanity

Going to school for economics, you realize that ultimately many of your ideas clash with economic theory, specifically in the case of what is the better economic decision versus the humanitarian one. Public policies are almost always trying to find a balance of the two that will give a net benefit to the population that isn’t measured in dollars, but in overall quality of life. It is easy to choose a decision that makes the most economic sense, but also ends up hurting the people that elected you to represent them.

The main case I want to talk about it minimum wage because it constantly comes up again and again in political debate. I want to be clear, I don’t think a minimum wage is the best economic decision, but I do believe it is a humanitarian one that needs implementation. Speaking in economic terms, someone should be paid only the value they bring to a company and many jobs that are mindless and done by younger people, are worth very little. This is the main reason why companies are looking to machines to do the labor instead of people, they don’t have to pay them a minimum wage.

Minimum wage opponents will usually say minimum wage pushes away companies from hiring more people and lowers economic growth, which is true, but they don’t take into account the trade off of wellbeing. Until we hit a point where we can replace all labor with machines, companies will always need to hire people to do monotonous work and most of the time that work is going to be done by under qualified, younger people. However, there are still many cases where the people doing minimum age labor are actually adults trying to support themselves on their own.

While many economists completely disagree with what im about to say, I believe that everyone who works a job, should be able to afford to at least exist. They don’t need to be able to afford every luxury, but they should be given enough in order to be able to pursue higher learning if they so desire. I want to live in a country where it doesn’t matter the situation you are born into, but rather your dedication and work ethic that helps you ascend into a higher class. Especially in the United States, which is so wealthy, we benefit from people having a minimum wage job that actually gives them a reason for living.

When people have reason for living, they commit less crime, create less social violence and well being is optimized. It doesn’t matter if you are a billionaire in a country where the majority of people are jobless because the social unrest won’t make it a good place to live. The government spends so much money on bad spending habits, but supporting our own citizens is a point of debate. A minimum wage might not be the best choice economically, but I believe that it is a monetary sacrifice we need to make in order to allow the best possible lives for everyone in our country.

Thanks to @Elyaque for the badges