Today, many government regulations exist in order to help the needy. Some examples of these regulations include anti-discrimination laws, maternity leave, and the minimum wage. Something that is often overlooked is that many of these regulations are actually more harmful than beneficial to the people that these regulations seek to aid. In this post, we will observe the government regulations exemplified above, and see how they in fact do more harm than good.
Currently in the United States, federal and state laws prohibit discrimination in “employment, availability of housing, rates of pay, right to promotion, educational opportunity, civil rights, and use of facilities based on race, nationality, creed, color, age, sex, or sexual orientation.” This actually causes business employers to avoid interviewing the people who this law is supposed to benefit most, as there is a potential cost of being sued if they do not get the job. 
As an example, according to a study from MIT, as a result of the Americans with Disabilities act, which prohibits discrimination under circumstances of people with disabilities, employment “dropped sharply”.
Today, a large percentage of discrimination against women in the workplace stems from their ability to take a “maternity leave”. A maternity leave is when an employer must grant the employee up to a total of 12 unpaid workweeks during any 12-month period: one of the reasons being for the birth and care of the newborn child of the employee. Due to the potential costs of having an employee take a 12-week break and, as stated above, the legal costs in response to being sued for discriminating in the workplace, many employers choose to not take the risk, and stay away from even interviewing these potential costs.
Today, throughout the United States, there is a minimum wage law that prohibits any employers from paying any employee below a certain amount. It is illegal for an employee and an employer to consensually agree on an hourly rate below the minimum wage. Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Memorial Prize winner in economics, has stated that while this regulation aims to help poor people who need money, it in fact assures that people whose skills are not sufficient enough to justify the current minimum wage are unemployed.
The purpose of observing these few examples of government regulations that seek to aid those in need is to show that they are inefficient and are actually harmful. These examples of government regulations that infringe upon individual rights can serve as a microcosm of even larger regulations which currently exist and which have the potential of existing depending in the future.
3 comments:
Let me first respond to your comment that businesses avoid interviewing protected classes. Well, only suggestive information (such as gender being inferred from one's name and age from years employed) is given on an application. By no means does anyone have to disclose that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or a transgender on their application, and it is illegal for companies to ask these types of personal questions during their interview. If you are implying that we should not have laws protecting against the discrimination because of race, nationality, creed, or color, then I fear that continuing my response would be futile. It seems only fair that we do not discriminate against people because of inherent traits. Everyone has the right to pursue a career based on their hard work and merit and should not be prevented from doing so because of characteristics they can not control and did not choose. It is unjust to blame the Government for the corrupt businesses practices of the private sector, unless you think the government is not doing enough to regulate businesses...
Jokes aside, lets take a slightly more critical look at what is occurring. You sight three example as to why you think regulation can be harmful for the individuals, but do you really think your proofs are example of an increase in discrimination? While there equality hardly exists in the work place, our country has made great strides in this field over the last 30 years, and I highly doubt that companies are going to ignore more than 50% of the population because they have ovaries. Businesses understand the importance of obtaining a diverse labor force, and part of that diversity comes from a healthy balance of employees of each gender. Diversity stimulates higher efficiencies and a stronger company moral, both of which result in a better bottom line. Additionally, before any sort of regulation, many companies would simply lay off or require the resignation of women who were pregnant, leaving them without pay and without a job. Is that really better than the current unethical and illegal discrimination?
Your next argument is that the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires companies to take reasonable measures to accommodate employees with a disability, has decreased the opportunity for individuals with disabilities to get jobs. While I'm always skeptical about data mining, this seems like a clear cut case where better information was collected after the passage of a law. I'm sure there were plenty of individuals with disabilities that were denied jobs when that was a legal practice, but when I see that 74% of individuals with non-severe disabilities are employed vs. the 75% of individuals without disabilities that are working, I think the Act is working. Let me also clarify that the Act does not force organizations to hire someone with a disabilities unless they are the most qualified applicant based on their merit for the position...
a continuation of the prior comment...
As for the minimum wage argument, of course employers would love to hire labor for less than eight dollars an hour. If I could get four employees working for $2 an hour, I'd quadruple my output! But would an individual working eight hours a day and supporting a family be able to survive off $16 (before taxes) a day? Not without government aid of course, so either way, whether through unemployment or insanely low wages, the government is going to have to step in and help these individuals. Additionally, I doubt these $2 jobs are providing the individual much in personal development in order to help them climb out of this pay range. So yes, you are absolutely right in saying that our unemployment numbers would be lower if there was no minimum wage, but the point of the minimum wage is provide individuals with enough compensation so that they can achieve a basic standard of living with limited government aid. Heaven forbid our government do something to discourage sweat shops from popping up across our nation. Additionally, if we already complain about the difference between the salary of the standard operative vs that of a company executive, imagine how much higher bonuses would be for executives if they could pay the employees that form the foundation of their companies a fourth of their current earnings. Minimum wage is all about a fair distribution of profits for companies.
Again, it is essential to remember that these regulations have been put into place because these classes have already been discriminated against, and for a country that is rooted up the principles of equality and the opportunity to work hard and earn an honest living, it is unjust to allow for businesses to discriminate. Of course, this does not imply that it does not happen, however companies take a severe risk every time they break the law and practice business unethically.
By the way, I would love to hear your recommendations to protect against discrimination.
Seeing as Tim has already covered most of the directions I was going to go with my comment, I guess I will simply focus on the topic that stood out (when I read it at least). That topic would be discrimination against women for being able to take maternity leave. Personally I find it hard to believe that in this day in age that any employers would seriously disregard qualified female applicants because of the chance that they may become pregnant. What time period are we living in anyway? Yes there is still discrimination against women in the workplace but that discrimination stems more from a personal source. I'm pretty sure that most companies want to maximize their profits and while a 12 month period might be a cost to a company, the company would still want to hire the best qualified individuals for the job. If that person is a women...so be it! The companies that were the first to realize this in history were one step ahead of the game.
Furthermore, as Tim stated in his comment. Without regulations employers would lay off pregnant women or force a resignation. This hits pretty close to home for me. When my mom was pregnant with my brother (I was about 3) she had a decent job working for the city. She soon was laid off however, leaving our family without its other source of income and helping send my mom into a deep depression that haunted her for several years. Thus, while there may be side effects to certain regulations (as there are with anything) ultimately you have to look at the bigger picture.
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