I was thinking about various laws that are designed to help workers and this is what I think of them so far (my own response based on very little economics that I know). Worker benefits: paternity leave, health insurance, paid vacation, and so forth.
It seems that the fallacy behind people who support these laws is that they focus on only what is seen. That is, they see a worker who now is able to leave if he is a parent, has health insurance paid for him, and can take off on vacation. If we only focus on that it sounds like a great idea. But we need to look at what is never seen at all and realize the negative side to these laws.
Remember that: Profit = Revenue - Cost. If an employer has to provide more worker benefits then it means that his cost must go up. Therefore, the profit must come down because the revenue stays fixed. A lower profit will imply at least four outcomes.
First, the supply of jobs will have to decrease because the incentive, determined by the profit, is less. Thus, what worker benefit laws do is benefit the group of workers currently employed at the future unemployment of other workers.
Second, some employers would choose not to hire workers for full time jobs precisely because they do not want to provide benefits. This will make employment more difficult in the market.
Third, the marginal employers, who are just making enough to have a business, will be driven out of the market because the costs would be too high for them.
Four, most importantly, since the price is lower the employer would have a desire to regain the lost profit. There are only two ways to regain the profit. One way is to increase his revenue, but that is not going to happen because his revenue stays fixed. So he must lower the wages of labor to reduce his cost. Therefore, the wages of labor are lower than they otherwise would have been. So this means if the average job pays 25 dollars an hour with worker benefits, then the same job would have paid 35 dollars an hour without worker benefits, for example. Therefore, there is no overall gain for the worker. The worker thinks he is having a gain with benefits, but in actuality he has lower wages than they otherwise would have been.