Poll of the Day > Make a case for a negative value minimum wage.

(+) Yeah! (+)

This should be impossible, but when I ask minimal wage critics what WOULD be an acceptable value they typically just say "zero" without thinking.

If zero is valid, then both negative 1 and positive 1 must also be "near" valid... right?
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When I was student teaching, I was still enrolled in school and had to pay to get credit to student teach.

my wife is on her rotations right now for med school, and has to pay the school tuition even though she's basically working.

In other words, paying someone to gain working experience does actually exist.
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If you're dumb enough to accept or negotiate a negative wage, sure.

most of the time we are making negative value since we've basically been working for free ever since production and inflation went up

right now I should really be making 14-16 bucks an hour but someone has to collect that money and give some of it to the gov't so they can give it to immigrants
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You mean internships?
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green dragon posted...

When I was student teaching, I was still enrolled in school and had to pay to get credit to student teach.

my wife is on her rotations right now for med school, and has to pay the school tuition even though she's basically working.

In other words, paying someone to gain working experience does actually exist.

Pretty much. This usually happens when learning positions are either in extremely high demand (you can pay to work in some super-famous restaurants for a few shifts) or the training is so demanding that you need to pay somebody to do it (as happens with med school rotations).

Wages by definition cant be negative. Yet another weak "gotcha" from Lok.
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Veedrock- posted...

Wages by definition cant be negative. Yet another weak "gotcha" from Lok.

I don't do gotchas.

Actually, WTF - what even could POSSIBLY be the gotcha for this topic?
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Veedrock- posted...

Wages by definition cant be negative. Yet another weak "gotcha" from Lok.

there is literally an example of it in this topic.

literally the second post.
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Lokarin posted...

I don't do gotchas.

That's all you do.

hera posted...

Veedrock- posted...

Wages by definition cant be negative. Yet another weak "gotcha" from Lok.

there is literally an example of it in this topic. literally the second post.

That's not wage.
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Veedrock- posted...

hera posted...

Veedrock- posted...

Wages by definition cant be negative. Yet another weak "gotcha" from Lok.

there is literally an example of it in this topic. literally the second post.

That's not wage.

correct.

it's negative wage.
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Veedrock- posted...

Lokarin posted...

I don't do gotchas.

That's all you do.

hera posted...

Veedrock- posted...

Wages by definition cant be negative. Yet another weak "gotcha" from Lok.

there is literally an example of it in this topic. literally the second post.

That's not wage.

This board and its scurrilous lies.
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I owe my soul to the company store.

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Negative min wage exists.

In California when I was doing my Student teaching I worked as a full time teacher, about 9 hours a day (had to come early and stay after to work with the normal teacher of the class). I paid $5000 for that privilege.

Now admittingly it was over 3 months, so 9 hours a day/5 days a week for 12 weeks or so....means about 540 total hours.

Min wage in Cali was below $10 at that point.....so 5000/540 was right about min wage......so I got just about exactly -min wage an hour.
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Are we talking "negative value" as in "less than minimum livable income" or "I have to pay you to work for you"?
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Also if you want a case for a negative min wage.

Sales position, commision based, but the employee is expected to front some of the costs because they are gaining some of the profits. This position does give a larger % commision then most though, so you can easily sell your way out of the negative min wage.

In fact, I worked a job like that as well, at SEARS many years ago. There was something called draw, and while you would still get min wage, you would go into draw (negative commision) which meant even if you sold stuff, you wouldn't make more then in wage, and if you fell too far behind you got fired.

It wasn't exactly -min wage, but it still seriously sucked (Since we worked in Vancouver Wa right across the river from portland where there was no sales tax.

I transfered to Hayward CA and went from making 7$ an hour (min wage back then ...might have even be 6$) to about 15-18$ an hour on average......and not wanting to blow my brains out anymore from boredom.
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darkknight109 posted...

Are we talking "negative value" as in "less than minimum livable income" or "I have to pay you to work for you"?

Just from a legal perspective, it's still up to individual employers on what to pay
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Lokarin posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Are we talking "negative value" as in "less than minimum livable income" or "I have to pay you to work for you"?

Just from a legal perspective, it's still up to individual employers on what to pay

Yes, but that doesn't answer my question - are you talking about "I will still make money from this job, just not enough to survive unless I have supplementary income" or "I will make no money from this job and, in fact, have to pay my employer if I want to work there."
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darkknight109 posted...

Lokarin posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Are we talking "negative value" as in "less than minimum livable income" or "I have to pay you to work for you"?

Just from a legal perspective, it's still up to individual employers on what to pay

Yes, but that doesn't answer my question - are you talking about "I will still make money from this job, just not enough to survive unless I have supplementary income" or "I will make no money from this job and, in fact, have to pay my employer if I want to work there."

Ahh, my bad

It would be the same as the current legal definition - which is just the flat minimum, which in this case would mean a value below 0, ASSUMING that someone was weird enough to accept it, would have to pay to work...
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Ah.

About the best defence I could muster for something like that is if it's for a high-profile, prestigious job where the experience, connections, and/or instruction you will receive as part of your work could seriously improve your earnings in the future (think clerking for the Supreme Court or being an aide to a high-ranking politician) then I am providing you with non-monetary "value" in return for your service and should also be allowed to request reimbursements for the training/value I am providing you, in the same way that a university demands work out of you (in the form of assignments and tests) despite the fact that you are paying to be there.

It's not a good argument and negative-pay positions are horrible abuses of capitalism, but that's the best I've got.
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I don't even wanna think about how a negative income affects income tax :V
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