Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity
If minimum wage workers aren&#x27;t responsible for the growth in productivity, why should they be paid as if they were? Would productivity actually be increased, if business owners not only had to invest in, say, machinery to improve productivity, but also needed to pay employees more now that they were using machines that improved their productivity?<p>For example, I build fences for a living. Usually I pay a guy $100&#x2F;day to dig post holes, and he can dig 20 post holes in a 6 hour day.<p>I decide to scale up, so I buy a post hole digging machine for $20,000. This machine is pretty much point and shoot, and now lets the same guy dig 200 post holes in 6 hours. Not only has he dug 10x more post holes, but he also feels better at the end of the day because he was using a machine and not his own muscles to do the job.<p>How much should that guy get paid now? Is it $1000, since he is 10x as productive? Is it $100, because he is working the same amount of hours as before? Is it $80, because his job is actually easier now because I put in $20k of my own money to make it so?