If there is a minimum wage should there be a minimum threshold for the amount of work to get it?
Showing up would be a start. How about we take the amount of work a CEO does, physically, then create a formula based on what he gets paid versus what the minimum wage employee gets paid. If the CEO makes 100 times what the worker gets, he does 1/100th of the work.Seriously, the question doesn’t make any sense because that formula is the only way to justify the work load. We give execs bonuses even if the company fails to meet expectations, so it really doesn’t matter. Minimum wage is merely a place to start, saying you can’t pay someone less than that. Time and half for overtime is also a minimum. it can be negotiated up, as proven by many unions who get overtime over 8 hours in a day and double time if they work Sundays.Instead, if you wish to eliminate the concept, we should teach negotiating skills to everyone so they can learn how the business chips them down. It’s always “market forces” that say a job only pays “x” amount of dollars, but somehow these days, those at the top claim the same market force is what makes them worth what they get paid. I’ve known several decent execs over the years who go to bat for the workers, but I’ve known many who will throw them under the bus as well.
Is the minimum wage constitutional?
It has been justified under previous jurisprudence as being within Congress' power to regulate wages under the commerce clause. See West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish and United States v. Darby Lumber Co.
Why doesn’t minimum wage keep up with inflation? Shouldn’t it rise when everyone else gets a COLA?
Companies love finding ways around the government to screw employees, if there was a another Boston Tea Party; they’d throw their own employees into the ocean!If you mandate employee health insurance: they make them independent contractors or give less than 30 hours (or both.)If you raise the minimum wage: they install $100k kiosks to replace employees (that's the cost of McD kiosks, $2.8 billion for 3–4 in each location they are putting them in.) McDonald’s and Walmart are 2 of the biggest employers of minimum wage employees, and this is what both are doing.My advice to the government is to give a payroll tax credit for paying above minimum wage company wide, the higher the minimum; the higher the payroll tax credit. It should start at $12 and another bonus at $15, and mandate 90%+ of hourly employees get a minimum of 30 hours a week average to qualify.I can’t say whether this would be sufficient, it would have to be studied and make sure there are things to protect against loopholes. But, I will say; Donald Trump offered NASA unlimited funding if they could get a man on Mars within 2 years (just to make him look good.) My point is, I said the same thing; so I already have ideas in common with the greatest president ever!