In our society, many difficult or important jobs pay surprisingly low wages. Babysitters, social workers, nursing home workers, seasonal lifeguards, and paramedics, for example, all make around $15 per hour or less but provide life-saving services.

This phenomenon can be explained using the supply and demand model we developed in Chapter 3 or by using related material we learned in Chapter 12 if we consider the worker to be a business owner selling their labor services.

We know that if entry barriers to an industry are low, businesses cannot expect to make long-term profits. This implies that jobs requiring little or no training (read: low entry barriers) should not be expected to pay well.

Please complete the following learning portfolio assignment for this chapter:

Determine a job that you believe pays a surprisingly low wage for the task(s) performed.
Discuss the training required for the job.
Discuss and try to justify what you believe the job â€should†earn.
What do you think would happen if the government mandated the above-mentioned wage? Please incorporate the lessons from Chapter 4’s material on price floors into your response.