‘Living Wage’ Demands

Re: “Project Hit with ‘Living Wage’ Demand,” Dec 5.

A demand for a “living wage” is nothing but extortion. It is a demand that consumers pay more than the correct price for a commodity--the commodity being labor. In other words, proponents of a living wage want to set an un-economic and hence incorrect price for labor. The victims are the consumers, who end up paying higher prices for goods and services than the correct price, the price set by the free market.

Any living wage proposal, like any minimum-wage proposal, amounts to nothing more than another government-mediated transfer of wealth from those who have earned it to those who have not.

The only topic left unexplored in discussions of living wage laws: How did the beneficiaries of such laws reach the condition that nobody will pay for their services? If you are a janitor, your labor can be replaced by anyone else’s. Indeed, it can be replaced (in theory) by a robot. Eventually, such low-paid workers will be replaced by robots, especially given the incentive of un-economic living wage requirements.

Individuals clinging to such bottom-rung positions frequently have ended up there because of drug abuse, failure to study in school, early pregnancy and other voluntary actions, which are well-known to lead to poverty.

JAMES F. GLASS

Chatsworth