An opinion piece in the Santa Fe New Mexican argues that affordable housing really means subsidized housing. The author correctly notes that government housing programs are subsidized by taxpayers, and below market-rate housing (often extorted from developers for permission to build) is subsidized by other home buyers and renters.
The author then asks, who is really being subsidized? His answer:
I submit it is all the businesses that do not pay wages adequate to purchase even entry-level housing. I mean wages that would be double the often-touted $15 an hour.
In other words, since businesses are not being forced to pay an outrageously high wage, then they are being subsidized.
The author is calling three very different things a subsidy. Government housing programs take money from producers to pay for the government housing programs. Taxpayers have no choice in the matter. Below market-rate housing, when it is a requirement for permission to build, take money from other home buyers and renters to pay for the lost income of the below market-rate units. Developers are truly being extorted in such situations. Both of these involve government coercion.
Paying market rate wages takes nothing from anyone. The wages paid to an employee is a voluntary trade. No matter what an employer offers, the employee always has a choice. He can accept the offer or find another more to his liking. There is no coercion involved.
Implying that all employees are worth $30 an hour (or any minimum amount) is a gross evasion. The wage that an employer pays is a reflection of the value produced by an employee. An employee who can assemble ten widgets an hour produces twice as much as one who assembles five. A rational employer will pay the more productive worker more than his less productive colleagues. And if the employer isn’t rational, the productive employee will find an employer who recognizes his value.
If the employer is forced to pay the highly productive and the less productive the same, those who produce less are the ones being subsidized—if they are fortunate to keep the job. Less productive workers receive a wage that they have not earned through production, and that higher wage comes at the expense of those who cannot find a job.