> When Henry Ford more than doubled his workers' salaries (while simultaniously cutting working hours) in 1914, everyone was convinced that it would drive him into the poorhouse. $5 / day was as insane then as $30 / hour is today. And yet it was as significant a factor in Ford's success as the assembly line.
>
> "Nearly everything in this country is too high priced. The only thing that should be high priced in this country is the man that works. Wages must not come down, they must not even stay on their present level; they must go up. And even that is not sufficient of itself -- we must see to it that the increased wages are not taken away from the people by increased prices that do not represent increased values."
> --Henry Ford, New York Times, November 22, 1929
>
> He wasn't entirely right, but he's a good case study to show that increasing wages to "insane" levels can benefit the employer as much as the employee.
>

Ford's idealism aside, his situation was completely different. He had a huge competitive advantage in that his cars cost far fewer man-hours to build than his competitors'. He could afford to pay extra to attract the best workers, and even if others tried to compete it would take a huge chunk out of their margins. His wages weren't as significant an advantage as his assembly line, they were part and parcel of the advantage of his assembly line.

Today, the playing field is much more even. There's no advantage to the employer from paying (unskilled) workers high wages, other than avoiding a strike. Just as nobody today would buy a car that only came in black (like the Model T), nobody wants to pay any more than they have to for the labour costs that get priced into their car.

I'm all for people being paid a fair wage, but there are plenty of people with real skills who do jobs not everybody can walk in off the street and do, who get paid far less than $30 (US!) an hour.

^v^:)^v^
FB