Along these lines, it doesn't fit to equate unpaid internships to serfdom. Serfdom involves effectively permanent, near total servitude to a landowner for most aspects of life. You don't travel. You don't get educated. You don't have upside. You can't escape. You're screwed. An unpaid internship is not at all like this. Unpaid internships are not "essentially a form of serfdom".
No, but that's how serfdom started - through voluntary servitude.
The point isn't to equate 21st century Europe or US with pre-19th century Russia. The point is that serfdom is a form of voluntary servitude which people entered into out of desperation. Likewise, nobody works for free (outside of charitable work) unless they are desperate (or they are rich kids, and don't need to care). Companies exploit this through unpaid internships - assuming they can get away with it.
Saying "you're free to walk away" is not a moral argument; if the only way a young person can find work is through doing voluntary servitude then they are stuck in that position until they do so.
Minimum wage laws exist for a number of reasons. If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ? The welfare system, i.e. the rest of us. So employers can exploit the system to boost their profits. Second, how does it fail to protect people ? Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue ?
Well, the employer gets cheap (or even free) labour - and therefore higher profits - paid for by the taxpayer. In essence, the employer is exploiting the system as much as any "welfare queen".
Sure, workers on minimum wage may receive benefits - but they would require less benefits than if there was no minimum wage.
"In 2004, a year in which Wal-Mart reported $9.1 billion in profits, the retailer's California employees collected $86 million in public assistance, according to researchers at the University of California-Berkeley. [...]In 2004, Democratic staffers of the House education and workforce committee calculated that each 200-employee Wal-Mart store costs taxpayers an average of more than $400,000 a year, based on entitlements ranging from energy-assistance grants to Medicaid to food stamps to WIC—the federal program that provides food to low-income women with children."
The numbers are the only thing that's quoted. The conclusion is that if they paid lower wages, the amount of government support to employed people would rise unless those policies were changed also. Government support paid by taxes, including the taxes of those who work at UCBerkeley.
The statement was squarely that it cost the public money to have WalMart in our town - they expressed it as the cost per WalMart.
For example, they could have expressed how much is Saved the public per WalMart. They didn't express it that way. Because it made a more sensationalist article the other way.
There is no empirical evidence that introducing a minimum wage causes job losses on a scale where the increase of unemployment benefits would outweigh the benefits of its introduction.
The whole idea that the minimum wage causes unemployment is a myth that is based on incorrect labour market models.
There is little good empirical evidence about the minimum wage, period. I'd have a hard time showing any harm, and you'll have a hard time showing any benefit.
That's because the minimum wage is usually set at such a low level that it applies to very few workers (<1.5M in the US, as of 2007), so very few natural experiments are available.
I'll give you one natural experiment, however. A min wage hike in American Samoa caused unemployment to increase by at least 6% (= 2041 workers fired by Chicken of the Sea / (65k American Samoans x 52% labor force participation rate)).
In fact, allowing employers to pay less than minimum wage alleviates burden on the welfare system--not only do they have to pay less to support the impoverished wage-earner, but they are actually working in the economy and generating wealth, increasing the tax base that the welfare system draws on.
"Saying "you're free to walk away" is not a moral argument; if the only way a young person can find work is through doing voluntary servitude then they are stuck in that position until they do so."
I disagree. My unpaid jobs have always been much more accommodating when I leave - they realize they're not paying me so they don't give me a hard time at all. It's more of an attitude of, "We knew this day would come. Good luck, and if you need references or anything feel free to ask." My paid jobs have generally been a bit more stubborn, like leaving insulted them.
Also, many unpaid internships give at least enough experience to have something to talk about in a job interview. I know my unpaid work was critical in landing a paid internship in January. While some people may take advantage of students and the poor work environment, you can't make a blanket statement and say every unpaid internship is unequivocally bad.
If unpaid internships become the norm, that is it becomes expected that a person has to perform a period of unpaid work as some kind of apprenticeship, then they will be forced to do so if they want a paid job at the end of it.
So I might walk away from an unpaid internship, but I'll still need to work unpaid in another internship until at such point employers deem that I've done my time.
Therefore the individual has no choice but to accept unpaid work - regardless of which company they happen to be working for.
It's a bad precedent that needs to be stamped out.
I think the value of a college degree as a screening procedure is in fact dropping. The potential value of college education is still high, but the piece of paper doesn't really give any insight into what value the student took. All it shows is that the student payed the fee (and probably is in debt) and put in his/her time.
Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue?
It's a question of producing wealth. The value of a day's work depends upon the worker, but you can't seriously expect a business to pay someone more than the amount of wealth they create for them. If it's a fundamental human right to have a certain level of income, pass a law providing for a guaranteed minimum income and let businesses pay the market rate. It makes no sense to expect businesses to operate as charities.
"Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue ?"
You're joking right? Have you seen any of the immigration reform/debate over the last 5 years in the US? One of the primary arguments is over the availability of labor so cheap that not even prisoners will take the jobs.
If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ?
I have a couple of problems with this, and will do my best to explain my reaction, but am not entirely happy with clarity.
I think you're making a static view of the world, and are not considering the dynamic of the system. Legislation like the minimum wage has an effect on the economic systems that you apply it to. It changes the numer and nature of employers, and the number and nature of employees.
It's impossible to measure the opportunity cost, but we can talk about the sort of costs we'll be taking. There are potential businesses that would exist if they could pay less than they do. This would create greater economic activity in general, and skill development. Both of these things which would feed back into stronger businesses and ultimately demand for labour, higher wages, lower tax.
The Internet should offer us awesome opportunities to reduce knowledge asymetry coming from labour being misallocated, or taken advantage of. Consider a version of linked-in that was oriented around networks that tried to offer and make contracts. You could see who worked with who, and then the contracts that were on offer. I doubt Linked-in will go in this direction - it would piss off recruiters. It'll happen though.
Since when did a living wage for a day's work
become a controversial issue ?
Outside of America, questioning this is one of those "things you can't say".
A politician who made these arguments in I'm putting is remarkable to survive at all, and definitely hated for life - Thatcher is the obvious example. The last change of power in Australia was caused by exactly these issues. Chile is lining up to have it out on these lines in the next year and will be interesting to watch.
The caricature of the right wing leader who's out to screw the workers to help the big end of town is like honey to the mindset of people who see themselves as victims, and who don't recognise that they are in control of their own fate.
There's always a labour movement party (run by teachers, lawyers and party workers) in there reminding people that they are victims, pushing those images, and suckling on the milk of votes that this easy play delivers.
Except in American - a country where labour flexibility and entreprenerialism are central to the culture.
Another evil I forgot to mention about minimum wage earier is the trap effect. Imagine your effective wage is worth less than minimum wage, but you've managed to land a dead-end job making minimum wage. Now you have a disincentive to refocus on something that would make you more valuable than minimum wage.
That pattern repeats at other levels of the economy. You sometimes see areas of government, banks or protected "national champion" businesses dominated by people who don't do much but also don't make trouble. They're keeping a low profile because the employer is able to pay too much because of the luxury of its legislative protections. Left unchecked, the good staff (who care about what they do) gradually leave for other gigs, and you get overrun by pretenders.
>Another evil I forgot to mention about minimum wage earier is the trap effect. Imagine your effective wage is worth less than minimum wage, but you've managed to land a dead-end job making minimum wage. Now you have a disincentive to refocus on something that would make you more valuable than minimum wage.
There are plenty of incentives to make better than minimum wage. Minimum wage doesn't exactly net you a luxurious quality of life. On one hand, it makes sense that if you allow the purchase of labour to be completely subject to the rules of supply and demand, information about what is needed where and most efficiently will spread through the network of economic activities. But labour has several disadvantages when compared to other commodities. Focusing on just one, it is expensive and time consuming for a person to upgrade the kind of labour they can provide. Education isn't cheap, and you have to support yourself while you obtain it. Being able to earn minimum wage while going through school helps to open up the opportunity to learn more valuable skills for many people. Unless your intention is to leave people from disadvantaged economic backgrounds out in the cold and allow their difficulties to propagate from generation to generation, there needs to be some mechanism to level the playing field, if only a little. My own tendencies would be towards even more socialist measures than just the minimum wage, but at least it puts a floor on how bad things can get.
Being able to earn minimum wage while going through
school helps to open up the opportunity to learn more
valuable skills for many people.
Yeah, that makes sense. Minimum wage gives those who have it a better opportunity to improve their situation than if they didn't have it, opposite to what I said in previous.
No, but that's how serfdom started - through voluntary servitude.
The point isn't to equate 21st century Europe or US with pre-19th century Russia. The point is that serfdom is a form of voluntary servitude which people entered into out of desperation. Likewise, nobody works for free (outside of charitable work) unless they are desperate (or they are rich kids, and don't need to care). Companies exploit this through unpaid internships - assuming they can get away with it.
Saying "you're free to walk away" is not a moral argument; if the only way a young person can find work is through doing voluntary servitude then they are stuck in that position until they do so.
Minimum wage laws exist for a number of reasons. If people don't get enough from employers, who pays ? The welfare system, i.e. the rest of us. So employers can exploit the system to boost their profits. Second, how does it fail to protect people ? Since when did a living wage for a day's work become a controversial issue ?