ABSTRACT
It should not be necessary for the federal government to pay a supplementary wage to those being paid poverty-level wages. That would amount to a subsidy to their employers, and one can readily imagine how over time the number of such employers, delighted to get labor at substandard wages, would grow to take advantage of such a subsidy. But government might raise the disposable income of poverty-wage recipients by relieving them of state and federal income taxes, social security taxes, and Medicare contributions. The earned income tax credit does help.
