Minimum Wage Deals a Blow to Teen Training

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I have been thinking about this problem recently, and I think that it would be in favor of the United States of America That we provide a minimum tuition fund from businesses as well, say one dollar an hour, it would add a new dynamic to the youth financial market, and it would effectively increase the wealth of our nation if we were to provide funding to "financial education" programs in public schools.
Yes, I know this might temporarily hurt our trade and business, but we shall soon after have the benefits of an educated America.

Nick Girard of CA 10:59PM October 22, 2008

I'm of a very mixed mind on this. On the one hand, I think that if people are willing to work for less, isn't it better to allow it than to make the employers not want to spend the money? On the other hand, that leads to exploitation, when a class of workers winds up only being offered sub-poverty wages. It's a tough question.
I worked at McDonald's from when I was 15 to when I went off to college, at a time when the minimum wage was $1.60/hr. I did get raises, though, since I outlasted many other folks by quite a bit (many of my co-workers left after just two or three months, and two weeks wasn't unheard of). I learned a lot, mostly about work ethic (and, well, that THAT wasn't what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing).
Maybe there should be two levels of minimum wage, with a lower one for young people who are getting training to be part of the work force, but who are primarily students. I can see exploitation there, too, but perhaps child labour laws would fend that off.

Barry Leiba of NY 4:08PM July 24, 2008