Just last month, the Virginia General Assembly failed again to pass legislation that would increase the state minimum wage levels from $7.25 an hour to, eventually, $15 an hour. After its failure to pass, progressives in the state cried that conservatives had failed to provide wage gains to those who need it most. However, these same progressives fail to see the long-term consequences of such a policy, which low-income earners than no increase in the minimum wage.

In most labor supply economic models, a price floor, like a minimum wage, often leads to surplus in labor supplied. This gives a small few well paying jobs, but another group no job after having been employed. This is exactly what an increase in the minimum wage would do— help a select few who would still be employable, but leave a larger group unemployed and further economically crippled.

Politicians campaigning on a $15 minimum wage rarely contemplate these effects, only citing that the cost of living necessitates a minimum wage in this realm. But what is even more threatening is that the current minimum wage could be already doing the same thing. It could be leaving a growing group unemployed because the labor people can provide is not worth any further increases in costs coming from this labor. A policy designed to help those in need of economic support is only further increasing this divide which could be easily fixed.

Present in some oil-rich countries and the state of Alaska, a Universal Basic Income achieves the goal of providing a living form of income to all individuals regardless of status. It also avoids the distortions to the labor market that price floors cause, allowing employment to increase without income decreasing. Another advantage of such a policy is that it removes the threat of automation replacing jobs. As the cost of automation decreases and the cost of labor increases, this threat is becoming more and more real for those with basic or no degrees, but also for those with college degrees.

A program like this also rarely leads to decreased participation in the labor market, as evidenced by real-life experiments in Canada and Alaska. This defeats the argument that just giving people money for nothing in return will lead them to live sedentary lives.

A program like this gives freedom to entrepreneurs to create and innovate without the threat of financial ruin, and mothers and fathers to increase their attention to newborn children, and returns power to the individual in the labor market.

At this crossroads in providing financial security to individuals across Virginia and the U.S., it is time we thank minimum wage for what it provided but replace it with a better and more comprehensive system, one that allows the market to behave correctly without hurting the individual. A system that is the solution.