Re: Fallows: Ideas about the Minimum Wage

Post #366,734 by jay 11/26/12 10:15:16 AM Reply	Re: Fallows: Ideas about the Minimum Wage Provide rights to part time workers. Are employers using 2 part time workers to replace a full time worker, getting around health care and other benefit costs? We need to study this problem, make sure we don't make the problem worse. Also, I think we need to look at rules that allow part time workers to work more than one job. This has been an issue for some time and is just going to get worse. At some point we are going to have to change from a sharp line distinction between full time who get guaranteed benefits and part time who get much less, instead they will need to be proportional to time worked and will need to accumulate across jobs for things like health benefits. My crazy idea, since I am a free market conservative, is to totally eliminate all benefits for everyone of working age that is capable of working, replacing all with a government as the last resort employer. Drug test workers. If they don't work, they don't eat. Liberals won't like that, but they will like the fact that unemployment goes away, and the big benefit is that there will be competition for workers. I'd think that paying the federal minimum wage, with health care, is adequate. I know its crazy, but I would like to see it studied. I've long considered that idea myself. We could get rid of a lot of job regulation while still giving normal employees a better negotiating position if the government would provide jobs for all citizens. The trick would be ensuring that the government jobs where good enough that people where willing to quit if not treated well but not so good that people where happy to live on the government jobs. Jay
Post #366,735 by drook 11/26/12 10:33:40 AM Reply	Then there's competition You don't want government competing with private enterprise. In theory that means government should only do those things that otherwise wouldn't get done. In practice, anything that government does, some private enterprise will be created to offer to do it as a contractor. -- Drew
Post #366,737 by boxley 11/26/12 10:43:00 AM Reply	Services that a governments provides is an opportunity to have a private contractor fleece the taxpayer. See "Indian Agent" for reference Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 57 years. meep
Post #366,763 by jay 11/26/12 1:00:27 PM Reply	The whole point is competion here The whole point of making the government a general job provider is to create competition. The terms set by the government would become the base line for jobs, if your job was worse you would switch to the government job. It would also strengthen employee's negotiating position if they didn't have to fear going bankrupt if they leave their job. If your guaranteed a survivable base line, it is much easier to say no when your managers ask you for unpaid extra work or the company begins paring back your other benefits. With that minimum line in place, minimum wage and other job regulations could be removed. That would give companies and employees greater flexibility in setting up jobs without giving an overwhelming negotiation advantage to the companies. That isn't to say it would be easy. There would be big issues over setting the base line in Congress, and care would have to be taken to prevent abuse. I can see part time and seasonal employees abusing such a program by constantly switching back and forth. Jay
Post #366,769 by boxley 11/26/12 1:13:25 PM Reply	is this what you are looking for? http://en.wikipedia....ed_minimum_income Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 57 years. meep
Post #366,781 by jay 11/26/12 2:28:42 PM Reply	Same sort of idea That is the same sort of idea, but what I'm talking about here requires you work for the government in exchange for a basic income. So this excludes people who don't or can't work for whatever reason. It would also be a higher level of income then that sort of system, as this is designed to be enough to actually live on, rather then a supplement to normal salary. Jay

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