How The Minimum Wage Benefits The Government
By, Chris Rossini
The economic backwardness of the minimum wage has been covered exhaustively. A quick Google search of EPJ reveals 492 posts on the minimum wage. It never ends. That doesn't mean we stop, of course. Come back in a few years, and we'll be up to 1,000.
But no matter how many times you explain how economically detrimental the minimum wage is, it doesn't make a dent in the fiat armor. They just jam another increase through whenever they feel the time is most advantageous.
Governments can care less that the minimum wage only outlaws jobs, and harms the most economically vulnerable people in society (i.e., the poor, low-skilled, and teenagers). The horrible economics take a back seat to the juicy benefits that government gets from the minimum wage law.
Henry Hazlitt described the juicy benefits way back on Feb. 7, 1949 in Newsweek:
“For every employer must be kept in constant fear of the Federal officeholders, no matter what he pays, and every worker must be made to feel that his welfare is dependent upon governmental favor.”
So you see, that's where the government's bread is buttered. The minimum wage provides a panoply of POWER!
Every employer must always know that the billy club of government can be swung at any moment. Every employee must know that their pay and welfare are dependent on the good graces of politicians.
What's not to like from government's perspective?
The low-skilled are priced out the market? Who cares? Send them to the unemployment office where they can latch onto the government's bosom. If anything, the low-skilled should be thankful, right? After all, government first forces them into unemployment, only to be showered with "benefits" for not working. That's quite a deal!
The minimum wage is a golden goose of POWER for the government.
Don't bore them with economics.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/01/how-minimum-wage-benefits-government.html
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