{"id":61,"date":"2015-02-06T12:58:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/the-true-minimum-wage.html"},"modified":"2016-01-05T11:53:06","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T17:53:06","slug":"the-true-minimum-wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/the-true-minimum-wage.html","title":{"rendered":"“The True Minimum Wage”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

That\u2019s something that was floating around, with respect to the minimum wage: \u00a0\u201cthe true minimum wage is zero, because the higher you increase the minimum wage, the greater the unemployment rate will be, particularly for individuals who neither have skills nor experience, even the basic experience of working at a job at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s something else I was thinking of: \u00a0if you\u2019re self-employed, there is no minimum wage.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, for some reason, I ended up at a post by The Anchoress at Patheos<\/a> with her thoughts on covering one\u2019s head while praying, to bump up the focus level. \u00a0I don\u2019t recall where the link came from, because it was an old post. \u00a0But in that manner in which you sometimes just find yourself following one link after another, I ended up at the site<\/a> of a woman who sells handmade Jewish headcoverings, and then was reminded of the days when I used to read the Mommy Blogger genre, where (for instance, on \u201cFrugal Friday\u201d when the blog hostess invited readers to share links to frugal tips on their own blogs) you could end up reading all manner of blogs by conservative stay-at-home, homeschooling moms, some of whom had home businesses in order to bring in an income while continuing with their family duties. \u00a0More than one of them had a home business making \u201cmodest clothing\u201d that they sold through their websites, and pulled in their older daughters to help. <\/p>\n

Now, when I tried to find these sites, I wasn\u2019t able to, with a few exceptions, from a modest clothing directory<\/a>: \u00a0The King\u2019s Daughters<\/a>, for instance, or Jumpin Bloomers<\/a>. \u00a0But one imagines that their hourly wage is quite small, even though their prices are certainly higher than what you\u2019d pay at a retail store.<\/p>\n

And Megan McArdle occasionally talks about the world of Etsy crafters, earning a painfully low hourly rate because they either fail to calculate their expenses and profits, or consider the profit to be secondary to the opportunity to refine their skills, or, in fact, simply need flexible, at-home work and accept the low hourly wage. <\/p>\n

And of course there are plenty of \u201creal\u201d small businesses where the owner earns so little, relative to the time invested, that they\u2019d be better off, financially, getting any other sort of job where the law demands that they be paid minimum wage.<\/p>\n

Which is a different sort of unintended consequence to minimum wage laws. \u00a0What if, for instance, one of these Etsy crafters or home sewers found themselves experiencing enough success as to hire some outside help \u2014 a neighboring teenager, for instance? \u00a0Other than declaring her to be an \u201cintern\u201d or paying her under-the-table, they\u2019d be bound to a minimum wage law that would exceed the business owner\u2019s own pay.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s about all I know \u2014 just \u201cfood for thought.\u201d \u00a0Have any readers owned a small business, even something as simple as selling Pampered Chef products? \u00a0In the real world, what\u2019s the effective minimum wage? <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s something that was floating around, with respect to the minimum wage: \u00a0\u201cthe true minimum wage is zero, because the higher you increase the minimum wage, the greater the unemployment rate will be, particularly for individuals who neither have skills nor experience, even the basic experience of working at a job at all.\u201d But here\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[243,48,49],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-etsy","tag-minimum-wage","tag-self-employment"],"yoast_head":"\n"The True Minimum Wage"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That's something that was floating around, with respect to the minimum wage:  "the true minimum wage is zero, because the higher you increase the\" \/>\n<meta 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