An argument for a living minimum wage (as if there needed to be one)

[ProfessorPlum]

Imagine you live in a small village. There is a rich employer who also lives there, and also a poor man with no job. This poor person constantly has to beg for food, beg for old clothes, beg for whatever he can get. It's a pain in the ass, but you can't let the guy starve - he doesn't have a job, so everyone pitches in more or less to keep him alive.

Then, the rich employer in town decides he needs something done, and he hires the poor guy to do it. He figures, the poor guy is desperate and something is better than nothing, so he hires the guy to work full time but pays him only pennies. Well, the poor man's new wages _are_ better than nothing, but he still can't meet his needs. He still has to beg food and clothing and whatever else he can from everyone else because his new wages just don't keep him afloat.

Everyone in the village looks at the rich employer and the poor man and thinks, "that guy is exchanging a full week's labor and he is _still_ our problem. Exchange for full time labor ought to meet his needs and get him off of our backs." They demand that the rich employer pay the poor worker enough so that they don't have to pay him too.

This seems like an equitable exchange - full time labor ought to meet the laborer's needs so that everyone else doesn't have to pay him too. It ought to provide a living wage. Otherwise, it puts us all in the position of having to sustain our fellows just through charity, and reduces them to relying on charity (even though they work!)

Is this an argument even a wingnut could understand?

[Orsino]

1. Wingnuts are fine with exactly the scenario you described.

Their answer is that the poor guy ought to get a better-paying job.

[ProfessorPlum]

2. True. But until then, he's on _their_ dime, not the guy he's working for

I know that would make them want to cut the poor guy off and let him starve, but realistically if you can't do that, he's everyone else's responsibility.

You'd think paying Medicare for Walmart workers and food stamps for McDonald's workers, or whatever, would make them want to put pressure on the businesses to start ponying up for the labor they are profiting from.

[Orsino]

3. They simply don't believe that the poor guy is already on their dime. n/t