Minimum wages

["Mitali Sen" <s-msen@bss1.umd.edu>]

Let me just interject as a sociologist in this debate about minimum 
wages. The so called competitive market that you seem to be 
applauding is not outside the purview of social construction. Markets 
are continually having to be propped up by states and state like 
bodies in order for them to operate. I think in a country as unequal 
and poor such as ours, it is a very dangerous step to do away with 
some degree of socialistic underpinning. If you apply the 
principle of demand and supply rule manual, unskilled labor 
markets, you have potentially starved millions in India. It is one 
thing to say that min wage is unenforceable and quite another to let 
the market determine it. 
Unemployment may be at its lowest today in the US but income 
inequality is on the rise and has been on the rise for the last 
decade. The poor are becoming pooreer, while the rich are cornering 
a larger share of the wealth than ever before. Also, what kind of 
employment are we talking about? Do these new jobs provide the kind 
of benefits and livelihood that people had in the past? Aren't people 
having to work as temps more often and for longer periods than ever 
before? Statistics like unemployment can be extremely misleading. 
Most surveys whether on inequality or stress levels indicate that all 
is not well with the US.
The bottom line is not profit but human well being and while I agree 
that for skilled jobs in a market like the US we can let the market 
decide, in India where the poor are already starving, there needs to 
be a minimum wage. As long as they cannot make a decent living, we 
cannot hope to improve the lot of the generations to follow.
I believe that it is businesses that benefit the most from labor - 
not the government- so let them pay the cost of reproducing that 
labor. 

The perfect market is 1) a myth 2) not the best determinant of human 
well-being.

 Mitali


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Mitali Sen
Dept. Of Sociology
2112, Art-Sociology Bldg
University of Maryland at College Park
Ph.:(301)405-6419 e-mail msen@bss1.umd.edu
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