>Not all jobs are supposed to be able to support a family of 4 at a middle-class lifestyle on 40 hours a week.
Sophistry. Come on, you can do better than that.
>What jobs are teenagers supposed to have?
They can mow yards, build crappy websites with PHP, Lemonade stands, etc. I don't know, nor do I particularly care. Teenagers aren't a significant part of the economy. For my part, I worked at all kinds of crap as a teenager, never making as little as the minimum wage, carefully saving up thousands of dollars (really, I was a tight fisted teenager). I pissed away lots of chances to have fun, only to face the realization that my years of constant after-school employment hadn't even netted me enough money for a single year of room, board, and tuition at a state college.
>We need to have entry-level jobs for people who are just getting started in the labor market,
If it isn't worth paying someone a livable wage, then it obviously isn't an essential need. That's basic econ telling you to stop wasting your time.
>whose labor isn't worth that much because they are still working on basic job skills, like showing up to work on time sober.
Vocational school, and probationary employment seem sufficient to me.
>FYI: I don't think raising the minimum wage just a buck is going to have any significant downsides.
Me neither. One might even argue for locales to define a minimum wage, maybe somehow indexed to the cost of living, as at least one has.
>We need to remember that there can be people whose labor isn't worth that new minimum wage, though.
Are you referring to mentally and physically disabled people? There is a gov't program to subsidize their wages, which still allows employers (like Goodwill Industries) to abuse them arbitrarily (but supposedly based upon an objective metric of productivity).
>There is something to be said about an employer having 3 $8-an-hour employees versus 2 $12-an-hour employees.
> Teenagers aren't a significant part of the economy
Yet every adult working at a job was at one point a teenager. The first time they have to punch a clock and say "yes sir" to someone giving them an attitude shouldn't be when they are starting their first job at 24.
> Is there? Please say it.
The first situation has three people with jobs, while the second only has two. Plus the people who only have skills worth $10 an hour can find a job in the first situation, where they can't in the second.
But the personal attacks have started, so I'm out on this thread.
I'm surprised at the self-delusional replies to your comments. You've laid out very reasonable points and have received very abrasive feedback. Seem's the way HN's been going.
Regardless, there are no references for either argument in this comment thread.
>Yet every adult working at a job was at one point a teenager. The first time they have to punch a clock and say "yes sir" to someone giving them an attitude shouldn't be when they are starting their first job at 24.
You seem quite invested in authoritarianism and suffering.
Sophistry. Come on, you can do better than that.
>What jobs are teenagers supposed to have?
They can mow yards, build crappy websites with PHP, Lemonade stands, etc. I don't know, nor do I particularly care. Teenagers aren't a significant part of the economy. For my part, I worked at all kinds of crap as a teenager, never making as little as the minimum wage, carefully saving up thousands of dollars (really, I was a tight fisted teenager). I pissed away lots of chances to have fun, only to face the realization that my years of constant after-school employment hadn't even netted me enough money for a single year of room, board, and tuition at a state college.
>We need to have entry-level jobs for people who are just getting started in the labor market,
If it isn't worth paying someone a livable wage, then it obviously isn't an essential need. That's basic econ telling you to stop wasting your time.
>whose labor isn't worth that much because they are still working on basic job skills, like showing up to work on time sober.
Vocational school, and probationary employment seem sufficient to me.
>FYI: I don't think raising the minimum wage just a buck is going to have any significant downsides.
Me neither. One might even argue for locales to define a minimum wage, maybe somehow indexed to the cost of living, as at least one has.
>We need to remember that there can be people whose labor isn't worth that new minimum wage, though.
Are you referring to mentally and physically disabled people? There is a gov't program to subsidize their wages, which still allows employers (like Goodwill Industries) to abuse them arbitrarily (but supposedly based upon an objective metric of productivity).
>There is something to be said about an employer having 3 $8-an-hour employees versus 2 $12-an-hour employees.
Is there? Please say it.