Quote: (01-29-2014 08:13 PM)dreambig Wrote:
Quote: (01-29-2014 09:42 AM)Blaster Wrote:
Bluntly, the fear is the free market will decide that these jobs aren't worth a living wage. Poverty will grow.
If these jobs don't pay a living wage then nobody would do them. That's why free market principles work.
"Living wage" is basically a term of art meaning "wages that can support a specific baseline standard of living as defined by society."
People will work for less than a "US living wage" if their conditions are better than the conditions they left behind in their country of origin. This might be good for them, but it's bad for the people who now have to compete.
Jimbo the Janitor earns enough to live by himself in a modest 1-bedroom apartment in a lower-class but reasonably safe neighborhood. After migrants arrive, Jimbo loses his job to a guy sharing a 1-bedroom apartment with 3 other men in a dangerous neighborhood. Jimbo gets a part-time job at Burger King and moves into his parents basement and spends the rest of his life playing World of Warcraft.
In other words: average standard of living is going down.