The real minimum wage is $0

Germany puts refugees to work ... for one eur

Germany understands this fact.

​Read more after the break.

 "Zaid is one of thousands of refugees who have taken on tasks ranging from repairing bicycles to pruning plants to cleaning sidewalks for pay of just over one euro ($1.1) an hour.

The so-called "one-euro jobs" have been touted as a springboard for the newcomers into Germany's job market, but experts remain unconvinced of their effectiveness.

At the sports gym, Zaid tries to explain to the sceptical faces crowded in front of him what went into the beef stew that he described as "so German".

For the work - which includes setting the table, cutting bread, serving food and then cleaning up - he is paid 1.05 euros an hour. Restricted to working no more than 20 hours a week, Zaid gets a monthly income of 84 euros at best, a small extra on top of the 143 euros he receives as pocket money while he waits for the official decision on his asylum application.

His monthly intake may be a tiny fraction of an average German wage, but Zaid takes on his job with a big smile."

Of course he does, being productive is a positive experience, plus, he is being allowed to learn the German jobs market and customs, without the pressure of feeling like he must be highly productive. This experience allows him to learn, make a small amount, feel productive, and when he is ready for the job market, he will have local experience, and references, if his current employer does not simply employ him. This is a low risk way for both parties to help each other out.

Quotation of the day, on the real minimum wage of $0.00 an hour..... - AEI

"…. is from Thomas Sowell’s book “Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy” and featured today by the WSJ as its “Notable and Quotable” item:'Minimum wage laws make it illegal to pay less than the government-specified price for labor. By the simplest and most basic economics, a price artificially raised tends to cause more to be supplied and less to be demanded than when prices are left to be determined by supply and demand in a free market. The result is a surplus, whether the price that is set artificially high is that of farm produce or labor.

Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed. Yet minimum wage laws are almost always discussed politically in terms of the benefits they confer on workers receiving those wages. Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they either lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force.'

Comment: Unfortunately, “common sense” about economics in general and government price controls in particular isn’t very common these days, as the “$15 an hour hysteria” sweeping across the country clearly demonstrates."

It is refreshing that Germany has not completely fallen into the tank on this. Perhaps there is hope for the US yet. Maddog is not holding his breath.

We discussed the real problem with the $15 per hour minimum wage:

If you are stuck in a mindlessly repetitive minimum wage job, remember it is the progressives who wish to tether you to that job . . .

"This was going to happen anyway, and the elimination of mindless, routine work thanks to automation is, in the long run, a great blessing for the human race. But at a time when we haven’t yet mastered the art of creating new jobs fast enough to ensure rising living standards and steady employment in the face of rising automation, it seems like a bad time to accelerate the job loss trend.

We don’t need laws against robots or progress, but we don’t need laws that hasten the elimination of low-skilled employment either."

Accelerating this change benefits no one especially not the workers.
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"Progressives are hidebound to maintain the current system, mostly because if offers the greatest amount of graft, but also because they spent the past 100+ years optimizing it. And now, it is kaput. No amount of Miracle Oil, or carnauba wax will bring it back to life. Maddog finds it impossible to believe that progressives like being wrong as much as they are, but until they throw off the yoke of the secular progressive religion, and begin to see the world as it is and not as they wish it were, they will continue to be wrong. 

And as Mead notes, the fix for most of this is relatively simple and inexpensive. Retarget the EITC to address these concerns, and have some significant amount of the EITC pay directly into retirement, medical payments savings accounts, unemployment savings accounts, etc. Additional matching funds, would be a very good idea, as would EITC funding for children of the poor to help defray the cost of education, among other things. 

These economic changes cannot be stopped, they can be delayed, or accelerated. Why progressives seeking to delay them would cause acceleration and fete this outcome is beyond me."