“Labor competes for available employment and conversely firms compete for available labor. Demand for labor may be specific such skill or geography. Although working poor produce value, the value they produce is usually readily substitutable given the type of skills they possess or the abundance of available labor possessing similar skills. Earning a low wage indicates that the marginal value of the work the earner produces for society is small and/or that he has few substitutes for employing his skills. What he must do to earn a higher wage is to improve his skills or move to an area where the marginal value of his skills is greater. Both he and society are made better off as a consequence of making such a change”. —-Mark Steckbeck, economics professor at Hillsdale College blogging at The Liberal Order over “The Rhetoric Over Low Wages and Inequality”