A Fair Minimum Wage

It is unfortunate that we must legislate a minimum wage.  Some large corporations would rather pay their workers less.  In a better world an employer greets each employee at the door each morning, can look them in the eye and pays a wage that will provide adequate food, shelter, clothing and transportation for the employee and their family.  Anything below ten dollars per hour cannot possibly accomplish this.   For a fair wage, the employer has a right to expect an honest day’s work from the employee.  Smart employers hire good, intelligent, industrious employees, not cheap ones.  Good employees create good profits.  A major problem is that the employer is often a casino in New York named Wall Street and the players have no interest whatsoever in the employees or in the long term health of our economy.  All decisions in our present market driven economy are made for the short term maximization of profit.  But, a middle class that is doing well is very good for the top 10% of income earners.  They are called the major market and drive the economy.  Middle income earners have some discretional income to spend.  The low wage earner has little discretion over how they spend income and the top one percent earner’s spending is simply obscene.  Individual competition for higher income rather than greater results is not productive.  Our bank CEOs have recently proven that.

A more effective legislative action than a legal minimum wage would be a legal maximum wage.  According to a “trickle down” theory, this would free up billions of dollars to working Americans; and even an intelligent theory would agree.   A figure like five hundred thousand dollars per year, maximum, would supply a high income person with an excellent standard of living and a reasonable incentive to produce.  There is a misconception that the great commercial producers, athletes, artists, financiers and surgeons do what they do for the insane incomes that they receive.  Any super effective producer is primarily motivated by satisfaction earned from the fruits of their efforts and yes, those who benefit the society deserve to be well compensated.  The need to have the highest income in one’s sport or their field will never be satisfied.  You would probably opt to add great educators to the well paid.  We live in a strange values society that pays the president of a top notch university several times less than it pays the university’s football coach.  If the maximum legal wage were $500,000 a year, do you think that a LeBron James, a Brad Pitt or a Bill Gates would be willing to do what they love, for that figure?  You know they would, as long as no one earned more.  You wouldn’t miss a thing currently being created nor would the country suffer.  It would bloom.

A fair minimum wage, scaled to the local cost of living, along with a reasonable maximum wage designed to minimize conspicuous consumption and spread the wealth, would be thoughtful legislation.  Thoughtful legislation couldn’t hurt this country.  It might be a nice change.

Cheers, Blogger Buz