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I always wonder if minimum wage does more harm than good. This conversation usually derails, so to be clear no, I don’t think people should work for poverty wa

I always wonder if minimum wage does more harm than good. This conversation usually derails, so to be clear no, I don’t think people should work for poverty wages, a viable business should include happy non-subsidized employees. My question is whether a global price floor psychologically depresses wages by establishing a global price anchor. Price anchoring is well known to influence the price people will accept. For jobs like cashier that are fungible just blanket get minimum wage, would they pay more without one when the employer can’t just point to the anchor price and say take it or leave it? Would they be faster to localize wages to local costs?

deinonychus 29d ago
This was fun to entertain but I don't think we live in that world. You think it's possible that the true wage the grocery store wants to pay its employees is actually higher than the price floor? But for some reason they can't think of any other numbers to write down on the paycheck? And without the price floor they'd be forced to think for themselves and reconsider their morals and the market conditions and their balance sheet and pay $20 an hour instead of $15? I think it's much more likely the minimum wage can be interpreted as "we would pay you even less than this if it weren't illegal." See the tipped wage. They would pay you $0 if they could.