質問者
最低賃金が低いままであるのに、商品やサービスの価格が上昇し続けているのに、より手頃な価格の水準まで下がることがないのはなぜでしょうか?
Brian Yoder
The minimum wage is not low and it is not “remaining low”, there are constant calls for raising it and in many places (like where I live in California) where it has already been raised significantly. I’m not sure where you live, but if it’s static there, that’s not the case everywhere else.
As for the cost of goods changing over time, not all of them are moving in the same direction or at the same rate. Check out this chart:
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-33c505e4ef5b2dbf13e710d1bb75c1c9-lq
You may notice an interesting pattern about which prices are rising and which are falling. The ones that are heavily dominated by outright government ownership or by heavy government subsidies and regulation are the ones that are skyrocketing in price while the others are falling in price, and the degree of that control/freedom fits pretty well with the amounts up or down.
You will also notice that average wages are rising at a pretty good clip too (50% over the 20 year period). Using the minimum wage as a proxy for wages overall is not a good way of looking at this.
But let’s get to the heart of the matter. When you see broad increases in both prices and wages we have a name for that. It is inflation. Inflation and wasteful and inefficient government programs with counterintuitive results are the big causal factors here. For example, if you are a college student and the government offers you a ton of free money (or loans) you will care a whole lot less about the cost of attending college than you would if you were paying the bill yourself. Universities know this and they raise their rates with abandon because they know that the ability for subsidized students is effectively infinite. Also, if they don’t install yet another gold-plated swimming pool and climbing wall in their dorms the schools that do will out-compete them for students. Subsidies have the same effect in all kinds of other areas.
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