@NikiNiki Said 
Pensions, here in the US, probably don't force people not to work, except that workers might not be able to continue in a job if they receive a pension for having done that job.
But I think, most of the time, people can't get a welfare check and a paycheck. I think that because when my mother and I lived at the motel, I met strippers who worked the gentlemen's club down the street. They collected welfare from the government, and they danced for tips at the gentlemen's club. I don?t know how they kept the welfare agency ignorant of their income.
If I were to say to the economics teacher, ?There are only so many jobs, pensioning somebody off does allow for a younger person to take the spot,? he would quote an African proverb.
?Each mouth has two hands.?
The inference is that removing two hands from the labor force, doesn?t guarantee that another two hands will have employment. Removing two hands might eliminate the work of four hands.
Welfare can indeed encourage people not to work. There is an interesting book about welfare in Washington DC. It?s about a year in the life of three generations of welfare recipients who, at the time the book was written, had never been employed.
According to my uncle, back when elevators had operators, movie theaters had ushers. In the absence of the minimum wage law, I bet those two occupations would still exist.
My neighbor who works at the museum might be an elevator operator or an usher. She?s a example of how the minimum wage law injures poor people twice because there is one way that welfare recipients can get both a welfare check and a paycheck. Working people may qualify for something called a negative income tax. If they have a job, and they file an income tax return, they can get a refund even though they pay no income taxes. Because my neighbor can?t get a job, she can't qualify for the refund.
Scriveners might have disappeared from the workforce before the minimum wage, but xerography is a post minimum wage invention. My aunt?s mother worked as a sort of scrivener. Her actual title was clerk-typist, and she did the work of a scrivener because when she typed she made copies while she typed. The process involved putting more than one sheet of paper in a typewriter.
My aunt?s mother always earned more than minimum wage, so at first sight, it might be that the labor rate of skilled typists might not have accelerated the advance of xerographic copying. On the other hand, the existence of minimum wage increases the cost of skilled labor, so there could be a relationship between minimum wage and the elimination of typist jobs.
And in the United States, there are no exceptions for unskilled labor. People who can?t produce the value of the wage cannot be employed.
The welfare check - I don't know what types you have, we have different kinds of tax breaks and benefits depending on peoples circumstances. For example, if you are living in a house alone, or with children you only pay 75% of Council Tax. But most benefits are 'means tested', which means that what you can get depends on what you earn.
But I don't think Minimum Wage hurts people, because it means that you can't be underpaid. If it is increased dramatically it might harm a businesses income, and have a negative effect on jobs, but if it goes up steadily with inflation its shouldn't effect them much.
I never thought that would work with a typewriter as the ink wouldn't go through
We still have cinema 'ushers'. In a small cinema, with one screen, there would generally be only a couple of people working. Now we have huge multi-screen places, with loads of employees - people selling tickets, people selling food/drink, people checking tickets, people showing you your seat and checking you're in the right place, and Managers.
There are thousands of more jobs now than there were before Minimum Wage, there are also more people.
'Skilled workers' aren't generally paid Minimum wage, it's manual labour, checkout workers, that sort of thing that is.
By training, employers pay for your education, and you receive some form of qualification at the end...they are training you for a specific job. That's why they are except from minimum wage.
Apr 17, 2010 @ 20:31:56
