Sent to oreilly@foxnews.com
Bill,
I wanted to inquire about your assertion tonight that "Without the
minimum wage there would be exploitation of workers". Why would
exploitation have to result in a world without a minimum wage? Employed
workers are not slaves - they may agree to work for wages offered by
employers, or they may decline to work for those wages. If the wages
offered by employers are not sufficient, employers will not be able to
attract employees, and businesses will be forced to raise their wages. If
the offered wages are agreeable to workers, both the employer
and employee are satisfied with the arrangement, which is hardly
"exploitation". Why do the laws of economic equilibrium related to
supply and demand in the labor market result in an exploitative
scenario? It seems odd that equilibrium in a free market is termed
exploitative.
Secondly, how did we arrive at the amount of $10.10 for a minimum wage?
In a free market, the "appropriate" minimum wage is set automatically
as employers vie for labor. Anything other than the equilibrium wage
results in a wasteful, sub-optimal outcome from a societal perspective
and is disconnected to the actual value provided by the activity. The
only way to justify $10.10 is to say that it "feels right", which might
be satisfying from an emotional perspective but begs the question "why
not $20 an hour or $50 an hour"? The answer is because the activity is
not worth that wage. The only way to set the wage equal to the value of
the activity is to allow employers to compete for labor rather than
have government set an arbitrary minimum wage that distorts the labor
market and results in increased unemployment and reduced economic
growth.
If you disagree with these points (and I assume you do), I hope you'll consider explaining why in a future segment.
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