(Time, February 6, 1995, p. 27)
http://www.house.gov/jec/cost-gov/regs/minimum/illusion.htm

Ofcourse the higher minimum wage cost is passed onto consumers, so prices would go up at McDonalds or wherever else the minimum wage is employed.

And keep in mind that a lot of other, higher paying jobs, are still somehow pegged to the minimum wage (i.e. minimum wage plus something, especially for union contracts), so the increase ripples through the economy.

Can the economy bear higher prices? Yeah, with a quarterly growth rate of - 8.2%! - and a sustained of probably around 4%, I actually have no problem with a small increase in the minimum wage, but do the analysis from the point of view as a blanket tax on the economy and not just some freebee you can extract from businesses without some drag on the economy.

So, Kevin, the only reason a minimum wage increase would work now is because of what Bush has done with the economy. A minimum wage starts taking back out of the economy what Bush put into it with the cuts.

Works for me. Few people are going to be willing to work for less anyway--and why shouldn't they be able to make that choice?

You gotta wonder about people like Kevin and his ilk. They claim they want "jobs" and "living wages" but then they bash business every chance they get. Where the hell do they think jobs come from?

You would think innate self preservation would kick in and show them the folly of their ways but it can't over come the fantasy and rhetoric.

I agree, but why stop there. IMHO, the government should be allowed to arrest the unemployed and sell them to corporations. We should also consider bringing back debtors prisons. Better yet, businesses should be able to pay off the debt of individuals. In exchange, the debtor would be forced to work for that business without any pay for 10 years or more. The public schools should also be outlawed and children should be forced to work. These steps would increase productivity and the economy would continue to grow at record rates.

Anyways, I never realized support for the abolition of the minimum wage was such a mainstream conservative position. Why don't you guys ask Bush to include it in his platform next year? I have a feeling it's a real electoral winner.

Factories can get workers far less than $3 an hour--let alone the federally mandated minimum wage--by going overseas. Now. Presumably, the fact that some of them aren't doing that has something to do with the type of skills available here.

In many parts of the country, McDonald's can't hire fry cooks at minimum wage and have to pay more. In other parts of the country, minimum wage is the best low skilled labor can command. But the market will sort most of that out.

I really believe that abolishing the minimum wage would in fact lead to a big reduction in un/low-skilled workers' wages. I could be wrong, but I (and the American people, I suspect) would not want to find out.
Besides, it's inconsistent to argue that the minimum wage level is basically irrelevant to some factories and to McDonald's "in many parts of the countries", then say that raising the minimum wage a small amount will have a horrible effect on the economy.
I accept (as does Kevin) there are costs but I think the tradeoff would be worth it.

EITC (including state or even local EITC) is a more effective antipoverty tool because it can be statutorily targeted (in other words, it can be specifically enhanced for working families, single mothers, etc., as opposed to the minimum wage's incidence over suburban teenagers). But it's a political orphan, for the most part. EITC is preferable to minimum/living wage in almost every conceivable way.

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