If it was legal to pay whatever the employer wanted to pay, the average McDonalds worker would be making 45 cents an hour.
- IF you truly believe that people would work for 45c/hour, then WHERE IS THE PROBLEM?
If you believe that people would take 45c an hour jobs, where is the problem? If somebody takes a job at 45cents an hour, it means that the job is worth it for them!
I have an employee right now, I hired 7 more people in 2 months, 4 of them are still students, these are summer jobs, so out of 4 students 3 are doing very well, they are learning well (I taught them on the job, first 2-3 weeks I pay NOTHING and that was the deal, that's until they are ready to be put on an actual project). They knew absolutely NOTHING of any use to me whatsoever.
1 of the 4 is much slower than the rest. When I say slower, I mean he spent 2 days for example doing something that takes me about 10-20 minutes and that would take any other one of the students 2-3 hours tops. So in fact what happened is this kid he came to me the other day nearly crying, asking if he could stay and work for FREE, NO MONEY, NOT A PENNY, that's what HE wanted to do
I said no, I'll pay you an equivalent of $4 an hour and you will report to me the hours that you deem you were productive.
Now, if he continues on a progression that I think he has shown over the last month, I will be able to pay him over equivalent of 10 bucks an hour in about 2 months I would say. That's because by that time he should become productive enough for me to afford his services.
You see, I am not interested in paying people anything that is not covered by their productivity, plus makes me at least 20 margin (that's margin, not markup for the uninitiated).
YOU are proposing that IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL FOR THE KID TO WORK FOR ME
Where would he find another job like this one? Where is he going to learn the skills necessary to find a better job down the line?
Minimum wages do not hurt businesses as much as they hurt the potential employees (who end up being unemployed) and the customers of the businesses, for who the prices go up.
I am an anarchist/libertarian/objectivist, call it what you like, I HAVE EMPLOYEES, I HIRE PEOPLE. How many people do YOU hire exactly?