Minimum Wage Misery

I know of a young man who is mentally handicapped. He aspires for a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, or stocking shelves in a supermarket, or pushing a broom around pretty much anywhere. He is big and strong, and can easily do any of these types of work, but he is slow. He has quirks. He tries to follow the orders of his bosses when he is employed, but cannot do that well enough not to be fired.

He is located on the very edges of the labor market. He has had numerous jobs in the last few years, all too many. One of them lasted for almost a year, but that was rare for him. Usually, he stays on the payroll for a month or two, more often a week or two, all too often just a day or two.

On the other hand, he is entirely reliable. Thanks to loving parents who drive him to work, he shows up on the dot whenever and wherever he is scheduled. He is very healthy, and rarely gets sick. This is not an insignificant attribute at this end of the labor market.

How many people suffer from such maladies in the country? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, this debility affects almost 60 million people, or one in five of us. It is very important for such individuals to have a job, even a part time one, for even 10-20 hours a week. This young man is capable enough to know that insofar as employment is concerned, he is a failure. He is easily bored when jobless. He leads a very unsatisfying life.

Why? This suffering is due to a great degree to an evil, vicious and pernicious bit of legislation, the minimum wage law. At the national level, employees must be paid $7.25 per hour. Many states mandate much higher levels. He is simply not worth even that amount of money. That is to say, his productivity is way lower than any such level. Any employer hiring this human being at that rate of pay, will lose money on the deal. The government has programs for this sort of person, but it is difficult to qualify for them.

I do not know what is the productivity level of this young man. Stipulate, arguendo, that is it $3 per hour. At that rate, he would be fully employable, permanently employed; he could keep a job as long as he wanted one. He would no longer be a failure in his own eyes. He would no longer lead a very miserable life. Bosses would make allowances for him. They would be glad to have him on their payroll, at, say, the level of $2.75 hourly. They could earn an actual profit off of him! His life would be immeasurably improved, and that of this parents as well.

But anyone who now paid him anything like this amount would forthwith go to jail. To do so would be in contravention of the minimum wage law. Imagine: arresting two people for agreeing to the capitalist act between consenting adults of paying less than the amount stipulated by law. It is one of the most depraved laws we have on the books. Why? Because it preys upon the least, the last and the lost of us; the economically weakest of us all. This legislation in effect prevents this young helpless young man and many others like him from working and being paid for the modest tasks of which he is capable.

Do not be fooled into thinking that the minimum wage law permanently raises the compensation of anyone. It is not a floor, undergirding salaries. Rather, it is akin to a hurdle, forbidding employment to anyone who cannot produce at least at the level stipulated by this abominable enactment.

Some states have laws allowing for a lower minimum wage level for teenagers during the summer. This humane act is instituted to enable such youngsters to gain employment while on vacation from school. That alone ought to tell you that this legislation is a shuck, a fraud, a scam; if it really raised pay, why “cheat” teens in this manner? Come to think of it, if this enactment had that effect, why not raise its level to a million dollars per hour? Then, we would all become rich!

At the very least, a special lower minimum wage ought to be legislated in behalf of the mentally handicapped. I recommend $1 per hour. Better yet, this law ought to be repealed in its entirety, and salt sown where once it stood. Even better than that, the people responsible for passing this law in the first place, and implementing it, ought to be incarcerated for the incalculable misery they have imposed on this young man and all too many others like him.

Walter E. Block is Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans.

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