"It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By 'business' I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white-collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."
- FDR... aka the man who instituted minimum wage in the US.
1909 Churchill said pretty much the same thing...
Go back even further to 1389 where the statute of laborers was amended by the king of england to ensure the serfs were always able to afford food.
So yeah... your argument is entirely wrong
And there isn't a Labor shortage right now, there's a shortage of people willing to break their backs for poverty wages.
Thanks Professor. You may want to review and reconsider your research a tad. Minimum wage was introduced in the US as a means to protect workers, and particularly child labourers, from exploitation by business owners struggling to keep their doors open during the Great Depression, which had an indirect side effect of workers often not being able to earn enough to money to survive on. In context, it was about econonics and ensuring fair business practices, and was not originally conceived as a social anti-poverty program, although clearly there were some side benefits in that regard. That is the actual context and meaning of the FDR quote you've shared above.
In modern times though, people in North America have come to misunderstand the concept of minimum wage as being a social program, which it is not. That was my point.
