The often stated goal for having a minimum wage at $15 is to help people achieve a “living wage”. Helping people is a good thing, but are there more efficient and less intrusive ways to accomplish the task?
The basic work year in the U. S. is roughly 2,000 hours. It’s probably less, but 2,000 hours accounts for 40 hours per week, 6 major holiday days (New Year, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas), and 4 personal days. At $15 per hour this works out to $30,000 per year before taxes.
Labor taxes are high. A $30,000 salary in Virginia yields $23,569.25 after taxes which works out to be a 21% direct drag on labor.
| Pay | 30,000.00 |
| Federal | 2,927.00 |
| Virginia | 1,208.75 |
| Social Security | 1,860.00 |
| Medicare | 435.00 |
| Net Pay | 23,569.25 |
Dividing by 2,000, a $15 minimum wage is shown to be equivalent to an $11.78 tax free wage. https://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/401k/virginia/result
Labor has never been know to be very efficient. There is a lot of overhead and waste on both the employee and employer side that increase the cost of labor. Here the government could eliminate 21% of that inefficiency simply by not taxing labor.