Friday, October 17, 2014

Socialists Push For $20 Minimum Wage But Won’t Pay Workers That Much

The Freedom Socialist Party wants the minimum wage to be $20 an hour. However, they don’t feel compelled to compensate their own workers with that kind of cash.

The party is looking for a web developer, and posted a job listing on Craigslist a week ago and Indeed.com yesterday, and it’s been raising eyebrows on social media.

Although the average annual salary of a web developer in the U.S. is around $62,500, the Freedom Socialist Party only wants to pay $13 an hour, which would be $26,000 a year. Except that the party won’t hire someone full-time, so their next web developer’s total compensation won’t even be that modest chunk of change. Perhaps they’re just trying to protect their employees from the temptations of “capitalist greed.”

One could argue that it’s not fair to pick on small organizations like the Freedom Socialist Party, because they can’t afford high-pay web developers. Given the requirements they list, chances are they’re looking for a high school or college student who is just starting out in the field. But, these are exact reasons why people argue against artificially high minimum wages. It’s not “capitalist greed,” but an understanding that it puts a barrier between small organizations with limited funding and low-skill workers who want to earn experience.

Full article: http://reason.com/bl … -20-minimum-wage-but



Share on Tumblr Flattr this