What is a Job?

With Congress voting to raise the minimum wage (along with many states in the last election cycle including Ohio where I live) I am encouraged to look at this subject.

Is a job a right? Is it a privilege? I say neither. It is a contract. It can be implied or explicit. a person or persons are contracting you to do work to help them accomplish a goal. That goal can be making a profit or in a not for profit setting it could be efficient use of resources.

Whatever the setting your participation is important, but the goal to be accomplished should be the foremost priority. It is your responsibility to become employable toward a goal. When the market determines that you are not helping that goal, you participation should end. This of course has been turned on its ear by union contracts, and expectation of employment for life.

Here is the part that I may annoy some people and I assure you it is not intentional. I believe any minimum wage law should be repealed immediately. If you and your employer agree to work for nothing you should have the right. This is not slavery. Slavery is involuntary. Of course someone could force another and say that it is voluntary, but that is already illegal and would continue to be. Very few people work for the minimum wage and for the most part they are young and they don't stay at that wage long. If employers could add workers at a lower wage the worker could gain valuable experience, and the employer can get a valuable, but menial task competed. If not enough people decide to take the job, the rate of pay will have to increase.

Minimum wage laws hurt in so many ways. First they are a killer for small businesses. These entrepreneurs have to put an increased amount into labor, with no increase in productivity. Their only way of recouping this is to either raise revenues, (raise prices) or cut other expenses. Usually that means cutting jobs either through outsourcing, often offshore, or automation, which of course eliminates jobs.

One way that hurts us as a whole, especially in order states is that many employers turn to illegal immigrants who will work under the table for lower wages. This encourages illegal activity, keeps taxes from being paid, and takes jobs away from legitimate employees. Let me say I have no sympathy to the employers that do this, but it contributes to a large problem in our society.

By making it harder to employ people and terminate people we hurt new workers, and unskilled workers. They continue to be under or unemployed. Many of these people then turn to gangs, drugs, or choose to live a life of slavery to the welfare state. This is largely why our inner cities have become war zones. While I am not blaming all of this on minimum wage laws, they do contribute to this dangerous situation. By trying to protect all, we make them slaves. This is inhuman. It is time for the good intentions crowd to look at the results of their policies. Good intentions should not be tolerated as good enough. Policies that do not work should be repealed for the good of all.