[belsarius]

Originally Posted by GGG

I was thinking about minimum wage the other day and my argument that businesses should pay a wage that allows a person to live without government subsidies. It might be entirely flawed. For example the US Walmart example is that they require health subsidies from the government. Well this is very true in Canada as the entire health system is subsidized by high marginal rate tax payers.

What if that were flipped the government should give its citizens enough money so they can meet the absolute minimum of needs (home and food). Then get rid of minimum wage. Essentially have a minimum guaranteed income but very limited employee rights

In this environment you would have higher taxes to subsidize people who aren't working or working for very little money and business would have to pay enough money so that the benefit of working outweighed just collecting the subsidy.

The concept of minimum wage might be completely flawed. Its set up to ensure that people can earn a living and support themselves but what if instead we ensured businesses were successful, taxed them effectively, and used that money to support people.

I was thinking this same thing the other day. I am behind minimum wage hikes in theory and how they can help lift some people from poverty but there have been a lot of points which really show that it ends up being a net zero effort. It is starting to feel to me like we are trying to influence 21st century market conditions with a 19th century mechanism.

There would be a lot of work to make this happen, but eliminating admin heavy social programs, eliminating CPP/EI contributions, and increasing tax it could be viable. There is a lot of opposition to guaranteed income but it would probably work very well combined with the elimination of minimum wage laws.