Yes. Of course, there wouldn’t be any
government-mandated minimum wage, enforced under penalty of laws.
Government, as an employer, could set minimum
wage policies for it’s own employees. But it leaves private employers free to
set their own compensation standards, and many can and do set minimums as a
matter of policy. But business owners could not just “pay the workers as little
as they wanted.” A job is a mutual agreement between employer and employee.
Businesses have to compete like everyone else, and this includes competing for
employees.
There is a myth perpetrated by minimum wage law
supporters that without these laws, there would be a “race to the bottom” that
would force down general wage levels. But this is demonstrably false. If it
were true that “in a pure free-market economy business owners pay the workers
as little as they wanted,” then the same principle would apply even under
minimum wage laws: Most workers’ pay would gravitate down to today’s legal
minimum wage.
But this is not the case. In fact, the U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
reports that as of 2017, only 2.7% of the 80.4 million hourly workers in
America earned the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. That percentage is
probably higher in states with higher minimum wage rates. For example, in New
Jersey, as NJ Spotlight reported in July 2019, about 6% of the state’s hourly workforce--242,000
of about 4 million--earned the then legal minimum $8.85 wage. It’s now higher,
but I could find no more recent statistics on what percentage earn the legal
minimum.
The fact is, if businesses could simply pay the
lowest wage they wanted, then why wouldn’t they simply pay every worker the
legal minimum wage? It’s simple. Because they can’t. The fact that almost all
workers earn more than the minimum wage proves that the market won’t allow it.
Workers have economic power, in the form of their productive abilities,
experience, work ethic, etc., so they can and do demand and get higher wages.
Businesses need that economic power, and must pay up to attract and keep the
kinds of work forces they need to thrive and grow.
Related Reading:
Gravity
Payments' Voluntary 'Minimum Wage' vs. Minimum Wage Laws
The
Economic and the Moral Case Against Minimum Wage Laws: Perfect Together
Without
Minimum Wage Laws, Would General Wages Plummet?
How
Minimum Wage Laws Facilitate "Wage Theft"—Against Employers
Government
Should Stay Out of the Business Compensation Decisions
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