Living Wage: You Only Hurt Those You Want To Help.
The living wage legislation is a feel good law instituted by well intending politicians and voters that as a whole will detrimentally affect low skilled workers it was intended to help. Data and arguments for Pro Living Wage advocates do not withstand close scrutiny and are inevitably countermanded by data and arguments which are rooted in The Law of Supply and Demand. The loss of benefits and the reduction in number of jobs available for low skilled workers is the unavoidable result of living wage legislation.
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You Only Hurt Those You.
Want To Help With A Living Wage.
Smith (1989) accurately defined the relationship between employee and employer over two hundred years ago when he said,.
"What are the common wages of labor, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between two parties, whose interest are by no means the same. The workman desires to get as much, the master to give as little as possible" (p. 74).
Smith (1989) went further by saying that these two parties, and the market as a whole is guided by an "invisible hand" that is kept in equilibrium by mutual self interest. Smith (1989) also inferred that the outside sources should not interfered with the"invisible hand". This and other principles laid out by Smith (1989) have helped guide the United States of America (U.S.) to become the highest Gross National Product (GNP) producing nation of any country on earth. Why then, after over two hundred years of the United States following this edict, do politicians and social activist groups want to change this proven formula by proposing and, in some instances, passing Living Wage legislation? Economic experts on both sides of this issue draw different conclusions when answering the following questions: .
1. What is the living wage and what is its scope?.
2. Who is the living wage supposed to help?.
3. Does the living wage help those it was intended to help?.