Morality and Raising the Minimum Wage

Regarding the Republicans’ suggestions for alternatives to a minimum wage increase, April 25: The next time Congress members want a raise, they should vote themselves a $500 per child tax credit and give some breaks to big business instead.

JEFFREY BECK

Los Angeles

* Re “The Wages of Morality,” by Guy Molyneux, Opinion, April 28:

There is a moral principle underlying the minimum wage debate; the principle that it is wrong to use the force of government to compel an employer to pay a worker a higher wage than his fellow worker who is willing to work for less.

There is no dichotomy between morality and laissez faire. The American political system is based on the moral principle that an individual has a right to life, liberty and property, not to a minimum wage, a job or health care if someone else must be coerced to provide them.

The political system based on Molyneux’s “moral intuition” has already been tried; it is called socialism. It has brought only poverty and suffering to millions.

RON M. KAGAN

Los Angeles

* The emotional arguments for raising the minimum wage fail to address the obvious question of what happens to the inexperienced, unskilled worker who will have a tougher time finding a job if the minimum wage is raised. Is he or she better off unemployed, comforted by the fact that those who have jobs are making more money?

Why stop at $5.15 an hour? Why not make the minimum wage $10 or $20 an hour and wipe out poverty once and for all?

The only way to improve wages and working conditions is to increase the demand for labor. The taxes and regulations, which are strangling our economy, reduce the demand for labor and are directly responsible for stagnating wages and increased job insecurity.

FRED SINGER

Huntington Beach

* Does anyone believe we can raise minimum wages without raising prices of basic necessities? So with the raise come price hikes to match the effects of higher wages. How about retirees on fixed income? Everything inflates.

If a free market determines appropriate individual wages based on workers’ productivity, then youth can earn what they’re worth. Experience and skill grow as lifestyle changes.

LOU VOLSE

Culver City