alt Hacker NewsLess than 1% of workers make minimum wage. There are effectively zero opportunities to increase employment by offering wages below the minimum. If someone cant land a job at minimum wage it is because the employers think they are a net negative.
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JohnMakin • last Thursday at 6:12 PM
> Less than 1% of workers make minimum wage.
federal minimum wage, which is lower than many, many states, so stating this is a little misleading. It's also at or around 1% (for federal), not less - per this 2023 source: https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2023/
In states like california, this number is much higher: https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/3
> Less than 1% of workers make minimum wage.
So minimum wage helps less than 1% of workers, at the expense of people who don't have skills valued at the minimum wage? Why are you confident that's a net positive trade off?
> If someone cant land a job at minimum wage it is because the employers think they are a net negative.
That's why I think that people should be able to work for less, for employers who think they are a net positive at a lower wage. It's better than the true minimum wage of zero. It's not like the value of labor is discontinuous, such that it is worth zero if is worth less than a minimum.