nothing is stopping you from working less than minimum wage, just employers from paying you less than minimum wage. If you want to have less money you can always donate it or throw it away.
"Just employers from paying" me less than the minimum wage?
Does that mean I can have my employer pay me the minimum wage while I "donate" some of what I'm paid back to my employer in order to circumvent the arbitrary minimum wage law?
You said the minimum wage should be survivable. Are you retracting that claim?
You said "At $7.25, it'll take you 170 hours to match" costs for living expenses, and that, after paying for all living expenses like food, clothing, and rent, you would "get 173 - 170 = 30 * $7.25 = $21.75. A whopping $21.75 left over."
That means that the minimum wage is already "survivable" and that it does not need to be raised, since that's all it needs to be. Minimum and Survivable. Except, you want it to be more "survivable" since $21.75 isn't "survivable" enough? How much more "survivable" does the minimum wage have to be?
Sure minimum wage jobs can be survivable and be enough to allow people to afford to save and have health insurance, but they should also be good for young people to start gaining work experience. If you raise it to try and make it "more survivable," then it will be harder for young people to work for low pay and get work experience to get to a better job where they can get paid a much better wage.
That's another problem with minimum wage increases. They discourage/disincentivize people from working harder or looking for better jobs that pay more. If my current minimum wage is 10 dollars an hour, and I want to be paid 20 dollars an hour, I could see if I could work harder to earn more money, or see if there are better jobs available that pay more, but if the minimum wage gets raised to 20 dollars an hour, then there's no reason for me to work harder or find a better job since I'm already getting paid more money not because I worked harder or found a better job, but because the government randomly decided that I should be paid more, and that's assuming that I don't lose my job, have my hours reduced, or have prices raised to compensate for the wage increase.
Minimum wage increases should reward people for working harder and making smarter life choices, as well as encourage them to use that extra money to save up, not promote laziness.
When you raise wages because people worked harder, saved up every possible penny, or made smarter life choices, that encourages them to keep doing those things. When you raise wages because the government said so, that encourages them to rely on the government to keep saying so.
It's also insulting to those that did work harder, and to those that demonstrated that they deserve to be paid 20 dollars instead of 10. They worked hard for their wage increase, while those that were lazy and/or making poor life choices still get a wage increase.
What if I'm not currently concerned with survival, and only concerned with gaining work experience?
Then you die.
I guess I should have phrased that question better.
Let's say I'm in high school or college part-time, going to enter the workforce pretty soon after I graduate, and I want to start gaining work experience early on, and make a little money while I'm at it. I still have my family to take care of me, but pretty soon, I'm gonna have to take care of myself.
Why does the government have to make it illegal for me to gain work experience, earn a few dollars, and be able to use that experience and money to get into a good job that pays me a decent living wage later on, simply because the amount that my employer and I agree to be paid is not equal to or greater than the random arbitrary amount that the government established?
if the government didn't do that, they wouldn't pay you enough to be able to get a better job.
What if $7.25 an hour is all I need to be able to get a better job, and the government decides to raise it anyway because someone else needs more money since they made the poor decision to have kids they couldn't afford, putting me at risk of losing my job, having my hours reduced, or having prices go up?
Also, if the whole purpose behind raising the minimum wage is so that people can get a better job, why can't the government bring the minimum wage back down after people get better jobs? Why does the government have to keep increasing it constantly?
Not only that, but, even if your minimum wage does go up so you can now afford savings and a higher education to get a better job, wouldn't other's also raise prices too, so you now still cannot afford said savings and higher education? If I am left with $21.75 after paying all my expenses, and then I get a wage increase so that I am left with $43.50, wouldn't the price of other things also go up to compensate for the wage increase, so I still wouldn't be able to save much?
