Let disabled workers opt out of the minimum wage?

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The general theory offered seems to be that disabled people are pretty worthless humans so the enthusiasm to make their working time priceable at a miserable wage is a neat way to demonstrate how basically inferior the might be to normal people. And that they might be able to displace a normal worker at a minimal wage level is even greater for employers to lower the general level of life.

The minimum wage is such a non-issue that this level of moral outrage seems to indicate some gross level of ignorance.

You know, you're probably right. However, the issue that the economy grew by 400%, and the real wages in this group has only grown by less than 10% is still a valid issue.

Psychohist isn't being dishonest in the use of his data, as he's pulling a few decades worth of data to look at a long-run trend.

1) Most of the people who talk about real wage issues think that the trend is a long-run trend.
2) Most of the reasonable explanations for changes in the wages in society have begun decades ago.
3) A change only visible over a 5 year period actually wouldn't be that worth looking into as that's less than the period of time of a business cycle, meaning that the variability within a time period like that would not be easily distinguishable from static.

Psychohist isn't being dishonest at all in this argument. If you want to promote a thesis counter to his, you'll have to provide a better argument as your own argument is rather bad.

What about the people who can't get off the bottom rung? i.e. people who are incapable of proving themselves responsible enough to earn promotions. The minimum wage is completely inadequate as it is; employers should be giving us more money, not less.

In my case, there are a number of things that I would need for it to be economically viable for me to go to work:

- full entitlement to housing and council tax benefit
- full entitlement to free NHS treatment and prescriptions
- an exemption from income tax
- additional disability payments to compensate for my limited earning potential
- assurance that my welfare benefits would be unaffected if I proved to be unfit for work

If the government tried to force me into work without those conditions, I would perform so badly that the employer would have no choice but to sack me.

What do expect from the soddy Tory's?
I wonder how many disabled voters there are in Shipley now, as I get the feeling that Philip Davies might have to start looking for a new job
Heres an idea how about giving all the Tory MPs the same amount of money that we get on benefits for there experiences and make then live in council housing the will shop them from talking a load of crap now. Kiss your duck houses good bye!

I have a hard time understanding this...

Is UK so backwards that disabled people don't get disability pension?

Let all the Proles opt out.

ruveyn

^ This.

Our value system is completely upside down. We value money over people. Humanity doesn't factor in to the bottom line, so the interest of the people is not served. The weak don't put up much of a fight so they're the first to fall.

There are huge welfare reforms taking place atm. The welfare state is being slowly dismantled under the pretext of 'paying off the deficit'. benefit claimants are routinely misrepresented & demonized by politicians and the media. Many disabled people are finding themselves reclassified as 'fit for work' by a rigged system that ignores expert medical evedience in favour of a computer generated questionnaire filled in by a private employee under pressure to make people fail. Even if disabled people appeal a desicion successfully its common for them to be reinvestgated only months later.

That is so disgusting..

This website has a lot more info on the subject:
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/home

Feel free to provide more recent data. With respect to globalization, though, more recent data proves little since globalization has been happening for decades - and if anything, has reversed a bit in the last couple of years.

about this instade lets lower the mimmal whage for workers for ages at least for my counrty 16 to 17 and those stell in high school. becouse they getting free shcooling inteill they gradurate and not having any real bills to pay as they still live with a gardian or parent and they can use those reousees for free and they have automanic roof under there head. unless they are in jam with bad home southion

I am not at all sure that this is the case, and particularly if we restrict our view to the segment of the labour market where a minimum wage would be the general, contractual wage. Minimum wage work is unskilled, or minimally skilled, consequently it is easily replaced. To the extent that unskilled labour is closer to a commodity than to a differentiated good or service, straightforward price pressures have a greater effect.

I do not see the minimum wage having a significant impact on employment levels. For most employers, I suggest, the number of employees is not dictated by the size of the wage bill, but rather by two other factors: statutory externalities, and production requirements.

For example, if I run a convenience store that is open 24/7, then I likely require 336 person hours of labour, reflecting the workplace safety rule that no worker can work alone. It doesn't matter whether the minimum wage is $8.25 or $10.75, the law requires me to have two employees in the store at all times.

Similarly, if I am running a small factory, and I need to produce 1,000 dozen units for orders due to ship in the next 30 days, then, based on the systems in my factor, I can figure out how many hours the factory needs to run, and therefore how many person-hours of productivity I need. It doesn't matter whether the minimum wage is $8.25 or $10.75, I need the same number of workers to produce those 1,000 dozen units.

But if the minimum wage was only $8.25, would I hire more workers? Why would I do that? I would only do that if the extra workers, beyond the number required, would produce more value than the cost of their employment. Is my convenience store turning away customers because of long lineups? Then maybe extra workers make sense, because they will create extra sales during peak hours. But it's the demand from customers, not the marginal wage difference that is going to tip that equation.

Ultimately, the cost of minimum wage is passed on to the consumer. And this is where, of course, it properly belongs.