The Moral Argument against the Minimum Wage

By Published on September 1, 2015

The minimum wage has been in the news recently, as there are a number of movements to raise the minimum wage from its national rate of $7.25 an hour. The largest battleground has been in Seattle, where a $15 minimum wage is scheduled to be phased in over the next two to seven years. This has prompted a vigorous national debate about the utility and wisdom of having national or state-mandated minimum wage laws. While there are multifarious aspects of the minimum wage, I want to focus on one issue that is rarely considered: the moral case against the minimum wage.

The minimum wage is immoral. To understand why, we must first explore its social and economic dimensions. Socially, the minimum wage is a type of social contract. Two parties, the employee and the employer, are involved in negotiating a contract over labor and compensation. The negotiation isย voluntary in that the employer is not being forced to hire any specific person and the employee is not being forced to work for any particular company, andconsensual in that both employer and employee mutually agree to the terms and conditions of the labor contract. Within the philosophy of social contract theory, oneโ€™s moral obligations are relative to the contract that is agreed upon. In this case, once the contract has been signed, the employee is morally bound to fulfill their work responsibilities, and the employer is morally bound to compensate them for their labor (through wages, medical benefits, vacation time, paid time off, sick leave, etc.). If either side fails in their duties, the contract can be broken; the employer has the right to fire the worker or the employee can look for work elsewhere.

Read the article “The Moral Argument against the Minimum Wage” on douglasgroothuis.com.

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