Higher minimum wage laws do hurt low skilled workers. We have two great big machines at work each will pay for it's self in under a year at current minimum wage rates. There is no choice but to replace the people for machines if we want to remain competitive.
It is a win-win. They force other businesses who can't buy a machine to pay a higher floor. If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth. Your company gets more productive.
Paying some a lower wage because it delays another machine purchase is not a long term solutiom
That job was not a long term position most would either move on or up. People are more flexible than machines. They're a better choice if you can afford it.
Living off of redistributed hand outs sounds like a horrible way to live. How do you improve your life? How do you find meaning?
I live in a country that has 3rd generation beneficiaries. Their lives don't appear enjoyable. Once in that mind set it's so hard to get out. They often turn to drugs and mindless entertainment.
You're on a site full of motivated self-learners who would hopefully use that free time to improve their selves and contribute to far more interesting, useful, and fulfilling things than making the widgets the machine can make.
Most of us also probably live in countries where a significant fraction of the population would choose Playstation/Netflix/heroin instead. That's their choice, but you're probably right that much of it is learned behavior. Perhaps some significant resources (government funded or volunteered) should be applied toward teaching people how to make better use of their free time, if that's what they want.
It's certainly a better vision than making widgets 40 hours a week for a company with dubious social impact.
> If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth.
And those companies will calculate the ROI for moving into a lower tax burdensome area. After the company leaves the people wont have a job or the tax revenue.
If the machines can replace people then they will replace people regardless. Its a capex vs opex decision and capex is almost always better in the long run. That's why that argument is a bit of a red herring.
Self checkout came regardless of whether the state had a minimum wage increase or not. As soon as the technology was mature enough it was rolled out.
