Many people erroneously focus on arbitrarily increasing the minimum wage as the magic solution for curing poverty. If raising the minimum wage were so effective, why not make it $1,000 per hour? Everyone would be rich. Oops — everything would be lots more expensive, too.
The real solution is increasing minimum skills. As civilization progresses, higher-level, functional skills (not just college degrees) are needed to effectively participate in the resulting economy. Hundreds of millions of unskilled people (many with meaningless college diplomas) around the world compete for a diminishing number of unskilled jobs, so the pay is low. This economic reality, like gravity, is a basic law of nature, not changeable by governments. Concurrently, many higher-paying, higher-skill jobs are unfilled due to lack of qualified applicants. The world needs and will pay petroleum engineers, precision machinists, chemists, high-skill welders and electricians.
People can no longer drop out after 10th grade and make more working at an auto plant than a high school math teacher earns. Neither is a Ph.D. in the History of the Philosophy of Pre-Ming-Dynasty Chamber Pot Design going to bring great financial rewards. Higher, practical skills from improved education, not government decrees, create higher, sustainable wages.
Paul Rollins
Vancouver
