Sidney Webb, English economist and co-Founder of the Fabian Society in the early 1900s, believed that establishing a minimum wage above the value of “the unemployables” as he called them, would lock them out of the market thus eliminating them as a class.
“Of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites the most ruinous to the community is to allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage earners,” Webb said.
That was actually a common sentiment in America at the time. in America shared this belief as well. Around the same time, a Princeton economist said this:
“It is much better to enact a minimum-wage law even if it deprives these unfortunates of work… better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind.”
Who was that Princeton economist? Royal Meeker, U.S. Commissioner of Labor, under Woodrow Wilson. [read more]
In 1896 in Victoria, Australia, an amendment to the Factories Act provided for the creation of a wages board. The wages board did not set a universal minimum wage; rather it set basic wages for six industries that were considered to pay low wages. First enacted as a four year experiment, the wages board was renewed in 1900 and made permanent in 1904; by that time it covered 150 different industries. By 1902, other Australian states, such as New South Wales and Western Australia, had also formed wages boards.
Also in 1894, New Zealand enacted the first national minimum wage laws that, unlike the wages board of Victoria, were enforced by compulsory arbitration.
In the United States, statutory minimum wages were first introduced nationally in 1938; some states enacted them as protective laws starting in 1912 until they were ruled illegal, but they applied only to women and children. For example, Massachusetts was the first and its laws "had the power only to investigate conditions and recommend changes". [read more]
I think if you have to have a minimum wage law make it optional for the employee. Make it so he or she can wave the minimum age so s(he) can be an apprentice or get his/her foot in the door. After all this is about empowering a person to get a job right? A wage should be negotiated between the employer and employee and the gov’t has no business in deciding what the wage should be. Then again those who distrust business and think business’ exploit and even oppress their employees will never allow the potential employee to wave the minimum wage. Those same people also believe the common class is helpless without them.
One final thought. If there should be a minimum wage why not a minimum salary? I mean is there really a difference other than the amount of money?
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