[keith123]

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that penny picking job is BAD for the economy, even assuming the pennies are a real good like produce.

it is bad for this reason...there are TONS of other jobs that are available that would profit by hiring an extra person at more than 5 dollars an hour. most low paid employees could be paid significantly more and the company would still be profitable. and if it isn't worth hiring people to pick produce at 5 dollars an hour, then it is obvious that consumers don't really want that produce. but companies would be profitable selling less produce at a higher price to the consumers willing to spend the dough, but of course that means less employment. and until the minimum wage law has a significant impact on employment in the aggregate, it is a GOOD thing for society, because it maximize the utility of labor.

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Hee Haw good is bad. bad is good. no money is better than money. up is down

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it is bad for the economy because it is a waste of labor.

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SO the people that would be doing this job are turning down other jobs to come take this job?

Is this what the min wage supporters believe: "You guys are too dumb to take a job that pays $7/hr over one that pays $5/hr, so we neeed a law to protect you from the greedy guys that will trick you into passing over a higher paying job."

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It is pretty obvious that this is not what minimum wage advocates think. What they do think is composed of two things 1) It is a mode of wealth redistribution. Some would argue that negative tax credit would do the same thing, but I think moorobot has made some interesting posts lately that an increased minimum wage might incentivize people to work harder and better 2) Minimum wage workers now don't really have the bargaining power to increase their wage. Obviously in some circumstances market forces will fix this problem, but not always.

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2)