[Objectively] in countries where a minimum wage has been introduced at a higher rate than the US and is reviewed each year it has pushed up wages but had little effect on employment.
Further I can't really stand the crocodile tears of business who want to employ workers at below living level wages. Their fake concern for worker is nauseating.
If workers are having to top up wages with food stamps and government aid then the business, management, and shareholders rather than the worker are effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer.
And if you let companies lower wages to compete then the bad employers drive out the good. Far better to make them compete on the product or service not how badly they are willing to treat people.
1. min-wage raises are so modest and so slowly phased-in (in the US) so to not produce smoking-gun employment drops, and employers prepare in advance for them, so sloppy underpowered studies don't show any large effect. marginal effects are small and so you need a powerful study.
2. do you want people who receive food stamps etc. and aren't hireable at $8/hr to have any legal on-the-books employment options or not? either way they're getting the food stamps.
3. I personally would rather see more Costcos+Trader Joes than Wal-marts+McDonalds, so i want to believe your 'bad employers winning' unless we force higher pay, but presumably people won't work for bad employers, so i don't see where your forecast is coming from. anyway it seems a little cargo-cult. you can't just start paying $20/hr instead of $8 and suddenly beat Costco.
e.g. see for instance this discussion http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/02/labour-m...
Further I can't really stand the crocodile tears of business who want to employ workers at below living level wages. Their fake concern for worker is nauseating.
If workers are having to top up wages with food stamps and government aid then the business, management, and shareholders rather than the worker are effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer.
And if you let companies lower wages to compete then the bad employers drive out the good. Far better to make them compete on the product or service not how badly they are willing to treat people.