RE: Help with a Minimum Wage Model

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Apr 06 2003 - 23:27:24 MDT

  • Next message: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky: "Re: Duplicates are Selves"

    Barbara computes

    > A single person making $5.15 per hour, working 6 days a week, 52 weeks per
    > year would have gross wages of $12,854.40 for the year. (minimum wage
    > people, unless they're getting help from someone else such as parents, have
    > to work 6 days a week to even begin to make ends meet. Many, many of them
    > hold down at least 2 jobs. Usually one of the jobs is part time and one is
    > full time, but some people do 2 full time jobs.).
    >
    > For 2002, this person would have had $797 in FICA taxes withheld, $186 for
    > Medicare, and $518 for federal income tax. On top of this, depending on
    > where the person lived, they might also have to pay state and local income
    > taxes. At wages of $12,854, this person is not eligible for the Earned
    > Income Credit.

    or, taxes amounting to (797 + 186 + 518)/12854 = 11.7 percent.

    Shocking, really. There's no escape even for the poor---this is
    even a little beyond the tithe extracted by theocracies!

    Charles wrote

    > You might want to think about that, when you are recommending that the
    > minimum wage be lowered or removed.

    But what do you say to the arguments so far presented that
    claim that the minimum wage causes unemployment?

    Perhaps you (or some) have the strategy carefully plotted:
    Raise the minimum wage to unprecedented levels---as high
    as possible, even if it approaches the average income---
    and then react to the crushing unemployment it causes by
    redistributing all monies everyone receives. The optimal
    way that some leftists would prefer to forward the revolution
    would be to put as many people as possible out of work (in
    terms of the normal economy) so that a central command
    structure would have to arise due to the "crisis". Well...
    it worked (or failed to work, depending on your viewpoint)
    back in 1917.

    Lee



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Apr 06 2003 - 23:36:28 MDT