Is raising minimum wage nationwide a horrible idea?

[Mr Khan]

BMaker11 said:

Mr Khan said:

But who is to say that certain people deserve to be paid so much more? The market is not an infallible arbiter of prices, and certainly has no moral underpinnings to speak of. If the people are making too little to live on, then they're making too little, period. 

Secondly, these things happen, especially when the side of the aisle screaming about "personal responsibility" is the one trying its damned hardest to prevent access to contraception of all kinds, or even the teaching of such in schools.

Well, if I'm an engineer, and I design infrastructure and the like, tasks that takes years of education and training, and even more time to plan designs and then execute....do you think stocking shelves at the grocery store (a job that literally a child could do if it were legal) should be paid anywhere close to the same?

If I'm a doctor, who has to do open heart surgery, diagnose symptoms with the proper medications, know just about everything about the human anatomy, etc. things that take over a decade to learn, plus clinical rotations and examinations....do you think saying "That'll be $7.85" should be paid anywhere close to the same?

Who's to say certain people deserve to be paid so much more? Well, I think common sense would dictate that they be paid so much more. A job that takes time, money, effort, education, rigorous examination, multiple interviews, etc. just to obtain should definitely be paid more than a job, like I stated before, that can be filled by any random schmo on the streets.

I agree, slightly, with your last statement, though. I hate that the people who say "you shouldn't be going out having kids" are the same people that go out and block contraception by any means necessary (either by preventing it from being covered by insurance or by using the "conscience clause") and teach abstinence only. And I would say that in this day and age, you'd have to be completely retarded not to know that sex leads to children, if you're not safe about, but I know a terrible enough percentage of kids don't know that. But at the end of the day, and I'll reiterate it a 3rd time: jobs that take no training and can be completed by a high schooler should not be paid the same as jobs that take high skills. Such is life.

I suppose i phrased myself poorly earlier. What i meant is why do the unskilled deserve to get paid so little? Basically, if we're talking about people who can't support themselves, society has to pay for that one way or another, whether it's businesses forced to pay more in wages or taxpayers ponying up for welfare programs. Might as well cut the middleman and see to it that everyone earns a living wage so long as they're employed, as if payment for unskilled labor is less than what it takes to survive, and we take for granted the idea that people "deserve" what they're paid, then it's indirectly telling these people that they don't deserve to have a place to live, food, or clothing.

So my phrasing should have been "who said these people should be paid so low" rather than "who said better-skilled people should earn so much more?"