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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm curious if those who are against the increase feel there shouldn't be a minimum wage at all? And why or why not?[/quote]

My personal opinion:  it should be left to the states and local areas.  WV and NYC are two very different economies and cost of living.  What is necessary for survival in NYC is quite different than WV.

However, a few Senators have a proposal to raise it slowly--and, I don't think it is to $15.
It would not start until after the pandemic is over--which is very wise.  You don't put people out of jobs when jobs are scarce.
It would be tied to inflation.[/quote]

That’s the status quo. The federal minimum is a floor. Most states have a higher wage.  Raising the floor is what we are talking about. And the jobs that pay it right now, may nor even be coming back anyway. It’s an interesting time to think outside of the box on wages and the workforce. Raising the federal minimu to 15 covers the half of the low-wage work force that makes more than federal minimu but less than 15.  Those jobs are probably not as easily cut as the lowest wage jobs anyway. But paying those workers more may offset some of the losses experienced at the lowest end.[/quote]

Raising the minimum wage is not thinking outside of the box. There is nothing new about minimum wage. [b]Increasing wages without increasing productivity[/b] will simply lead to inflation. This is simple economics. The federal minimum wage did not impact inflation in the past precisely because it affected only a very small number of people. But if you now suddenly apply it to 30% of the workforce, its impacts on unemployment and inflation will be substantial.

I find it ironic that you think it's a good idea for the federal government to set a "floor" that is higher or equal to all existing state minimum wage levels. That's some floor. [/quote]
You are oversimplifying by a lot. We've got an almost [b]feudalistic [/b]economy going right now, where workers are not actually reaping the benefits of increases in productivity over the past several decades. Almost all of that wealth has accrued to the top fraction of the 1%. Our economy is so balkanized, that I don't really think that you can easily apply economic theories that assume a different economic structure. A substantial increase in the minimum wage may not, in fact, lead to the level of inflation that Econ 101 might have suggested, because it might just readjust a situation where people are getting goods from charities or buying on credit to buying those goods for themselves (i.e. it may not lead to as large of a demand increase as you might expect).

I don't really know what the right answer is, but paying people a living wage seems like a good start. If there are economic consequences to that policy, then we can deal with them when they come along. But arguing for the status quo, where the majority of Americans are living hand-to-mouth and also dying in debt at the same time that the two richest men to ever have lived (and that includes one guy who almost halved his net worth in a divorce) are also Americans seems pretty f'ed up and also not good for the economy.[/quote]

You use this word, feudalistic, do you know what it means? Income inequality was a symptom of feudalism but there are a wide variety of factors that can cause income inequality. Anyone who has studied the global economy in the past century knows that the present income inequality within the US is caused by dual factors of increased low-wage labor supply and globalization. Before you burst a blood vessel, I am not here to tell you what is good or bad, just what is. Globalization has been a net positive for the US as our broad economy has been able to shift significantly towards activities that have higher productivity. As a result, we see significant growth in the income levels of the top two income quintiles. As a result, the present decrease in the number of people in the middle class is [b]largely [/b]due to a migration to the upper-middle class. I say largely because there is also a smaller portion that went to the lower-income class. The cause for this is due to the divergence of wages to per-capita GDP that occurred in the early 70s. This was in turn caused by significant growth in the supply of low/lower-skilled labor as a result of new immigration policies and increased women's participation in the labor market. Again, I'm not here to tell you what is good or bad, just what is. The immigration act of 1965 significantly tilted the US immigration policy away from western countries in Europe, towards less developed parts of the world, in order to encourage diversity. The result of this is that immigration into the US exploded since the act and the immigrants tend to be lower-skilled on average. These immigrants compete with existing low-skilled workers in the US, driving wages lower. Women entering the workforce also tend to be in lower-skilled positions, further discouraging wage growth. The combination of globalism and oversupply of lower-skill labor resulted in the present situation where the US has effectively two different economic systems: one for high-skilled workers, and one for low-skilled workers, resulting in significant income inequalities. 
[/quote]

I just realized I wrote a much simplifier version of this comment after you did.

It is interesting that these points typically don't come up much in general economic discussions, presumably because they raise points that most don't want to hear because they challenge a number of common assumptions.[/quote]

Yes, because it's de rigueur to blame greed and capitalism for the ills of society. Economists that suggest that standard well-understood economic forces are at play are doomed to be ostracized by their peers and others in "polite society".  [/quote]

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