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@Greyparrot
If it's a good idea to waive it, then it's a good idea to eliminate it. That's a general rule for any legislation including taxes if you want to promote equality under the law.
Treating minors and adults as "equal under the law" is a blatantly absurd and unworkable proposition...
Besides... why waive it only for teens when there are young felons (and society!) that would benefit greatly from the elimination of the minimum wage. Unskilled labor can include any age group, so just drop the damn minimum wage so they can get a job and produce something for society, even if it's producing something trivial.
I don't deny that minimum wage laws have an unemployment effect (although you're exaggerating its magnitude). I just think it's worth the cost to preserve a minimum standard of living for American workers. I'm okay with waiving it for minors because most minors aren't financially supporting themselves, so it doesn't really matter how much they earn.
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@Greyparrot
That's a very interesting idea. I wouldn't support eliminating the minimum wage, but waiving it for minors could be a great way to fill shortages of unskilled labor without immigration.
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@Greyparrot
The H-1B program is ostensibly designed to fill labor shortages, but it often gets abused by companies that just want a cheap alternative to American labor. I suppose if the program is reformed to eliminate any such instances of abuse, then it's fine. But like I said, we should really be focusing on getting American workers to fill those labor shortages.
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And I actually hate the idea of using immigration to fill domestic labor shortages. It's fine as a short-term solution, but in the long-term, we should be reforming our education system and social safety net so that those labor shortages don't exist in the first place (although, again, since immigrant labor tends to be cheaper than American labor, this would cause some price inflation).
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I believe that when you cut out all the bullshit and virtue-signaling, it becomes very clear that the U.S. would benefit from a drastic reduction in immigration levels.
Immigration advocates always bring up economics, but the economic benefits of immigration are actually quite limited. The main benefit is that immigrant workers fill domestic labor shortages, by taking jobs that native-born American workers can't/won't take. However, this is only true up to a certain numerical threshold. Any immigrants beyond that will start competing with Americans for jobs, which is obviously harmful (although it does reduce labor costs for businesses, thus lowering prices across the board). Restricting immigration levels to the bare minimum needed to fill labor shortages would improve employment prospects for millions of Americans, even if it would also cause some mild price inflation.
The sociological impacts of immigration are far more clear-cut: immigration without assimilation has devastating effects on the country's social fabric. It erodes its sense of unified national identity and reduces overall levels of trust and kinship between its inhabitants. In order to ensure that all immigrants are fully integrated into American society, they must be selected carefully (on the basis of cultural compatibility) and admitted in relatively small numbers.
So there you have it. Change my mind!
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@secularmerlin
I'm a devout theist, but I don't believe that God's existence can be rationally justified. The physicalist model of the universe is 100% coherent, and there's no rational reason to suppose that any supernatural being exists beyond that.
My faith in God is ultimately based upon my own personal experience of him.
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