Would you throw one person in front of a runaway trolley in order to save two people? How about half a million to save a million? Those are the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's estimates of how many would be harmed and how many helped in the US by a minimum wage hike from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. Specifically, it would lead to the loss of about half a million jobs, but lift about a million people over the poverty line, currently set at $24,100 a year for a family of four. Is it worth it?
We can try to weigh the pros and cons of such a trade-off, the increased hardships of those who become unemployed versus the reduced hardships of those for whom life will no longer be as much of a struggle. In the classic trolley problem, though, most people balk at throwing people on the tracks, even if it's to save more lives further down the road. When it's up close and personal, we recognize that other people's lives are not ours to play with.
And anyway, when it comes to helping the needy, there could hardly be a less efficient way of doing so, since many of those who earn minimum wage are second or third household earners who are not even a little bit poor. Why not let the market decide how much each person's labour is worth at any given time, and target our assistance more specifically to those who really need it?
And anyway, when it comes to helping the needy, there could hardly be a less efficient way of doing so, since many of those who earn minimum wage are second or third household earners who are not even a little bit poor. Why not let the market decide how much each person's labour is worth at any given time, and target our assistance more specifically to those who really need it?