Circa 1970 I lied about my age to get a job in a hospital kitchen. Friends and relatives were working there, so I expected fun and games. The whip came down, it was hard work, plus fun and games. Inflation was kicking in, so I was started at $1.85 an hour when veterans were being paid $1.70. That was the first time I noticed Govt policies were distorting the market. When I realized that I could buy a stereo with a paycheck, I began working double shifts on weekends to make more.
40 years later, and many jackings of the minimum wage, plus stringent child-labor laws, it is not possible to stay in business and pay kids minimum wage. So now we put a french term to slave labor and call it a benefit.
This trend has come to the attention of martinets in the govt, who will now crack down on it, and that was last year.
This year, we now have colleges making students pay to work in unpaid internships by attaching college credits to the work.
But they have left in an exemption... Lawyers and politicians can have unpaid labor. Youth are in particular targeted for work for which others would be paid. They can have it. Not you.
There has never been a govt rule that does not invite skirting around, which in turn begets more rules, and then inevitable sclerosis in the body economic. WE need to get back to freedom to and freedom from.
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