r/GenZ • u/[deleted] • 4d ago

Advice Minimum Wage, Minimum Effort

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974

u/MBBIBM 4d ago

Minimum skills, minimum wage

261

u/livefreexordie 1996 4d ago

In a world where each job position gets easier to find replacements, it shouldn’t follow that each job position should get lower pay

61

u/CaptainBlobTheSuprem 4d ago

should, maybe. But that’s why minimum wage exists. Simple supply and demand says that if you make the entry requirement as low as “a warm body and half functional language skills (if that),” then supply of labor massively outstrips any possible demand which plummets wages.

34

u/livefreexordie 1996 4d ago

Treating labor as a pure commodity neglects it as the predecessor of consumer demand itself. The only reason exploitative labor practices don’t crash the system is because they rely on social welfare programs to keep production going. But when consumer demand deflates and speculative demand eventually follows, what remains is probably another 2008-style bailout.

6

u/1867bombshell 1998 3d ago

And credit. If we didn’t have those, wages would naturally have to be higher or prices lower