Kudos for mentioning Mises and Hayek. That was a pleasant surprise.

@general;

If you raise the minimum wage in order to provide a "living wage" for people, then you will also have to ensure that inflation does not take place. Otherwise, all raising the minimum wage will do will be to drive up the cost of everything else. Other people will get a pay increase, because they don't want to work for minimum wage; many of these people got a degree or some training and have knowledge in their field that the average person does not (thus, there is more demand for these people, because there is a lower supply of qualified workers). The effect of that, of course, is to drive up prices across the board... putting you back to square one, where you find yourself in need of raising the minimum wage again.

The problem with preventing inflation is that you'll basically have to freeze wages and prices for everyone. After raising the minimum wage, of course. But this harms everyone too, because businesses will get less profit. That might sound good at first, but less profit for a business means less room to expand, less motivation to expand with lower returns, fewer jobs being created, and an overall loss of wealth by everyone in the economy.

Increasing the minimum wage sounds nice, but it's really just kicking the can down the road. I can sympathize with low wage earners, as I am one myself (making less than the apparent average of $9.02/hr for fast food cooks). But I understand that my job is something that could be done by literally anyone with hands, feet, and a semi functional brain. It's a temporary job while I seek to improve my skills that will hopefully lead to a better job down the road.

Pointless and irrelevant

Increasing the cost of labor without an increase in productivity devalues the money used to purchase the labor, the effects on everyone through increase prices and reduced value of their savings.

It’s not rocket science but sadly it seems people in our country believe in fairy tale economics and false altruism rather than reason and logic.

It’s not McDonald’s responsibility to provide a living wage. It is the responsibility of the employee to take advantage of the opportunity working there provides and use that experience to move on from that restaurant.

We ARE a socialist society. We have social security, public roads and highways, a publically funded military, foodstamps and a variety of other social welfare programs that essentially subsidize the low wages of corporations like Walmart and McDonalds. We've funded a variety of public works, given government money to a variety of start ups and corporations.

No, not everyone should make a doctor's salary, but you are just intentionally trying to blow out of proportion what SHOULD be done: we need a higher minimum wage. It didn't used to be like this. We didn't used to have to work two jobs to survive. In fact in the 1960s we were heading towards a less then 40 hour work week. One of the big problems right now is that the minimum wage isn't worth what it used to be worth. It's currently at $7, but 40 years ago in today's dollars it would be well over $10. THAT is what these people should be making. That is what anyone with a job should be making.

Without a living wage, people either get subsidized by the government (socialism) or they starve and die in the street. I'm afraid to ask which one you prefer. Personally, I would prefer private companies pay their employees enough to survive, not have them rely on, as you would probably call them, "socialist government handouts" which is what is currently going on.

We ARE a socialist society. We have social security, public roads and highways, a publically funded military, foodstamps and a variety of other social welfare programs that essentially subsidize the low wages of corporations like Walmart and McDonalds. We've funded a variety of public works, given government money to a variety of start ups and corporations.

No, not everyone should make a doctor's salary, but you are just intentionally trying to blow out of proportion what SHOULD be done: we need a higher minimum wage. It didn't used to be like this. We didn't used to have to work two jobs to survive. In fact in the 1960s we were heading towards a less then 40 hour work week. One of the big problems right now is that the minimum wage isn't worth what it used to be worth. It's currently at $7, but 40 years ago in today's dollars it would be well over $10. THAT is what these people should be making. That is what anyone with a job should be making.

Without a living wage, people either get subsidized by the government (socialism) or they starve and die in the street. I'm afraid to ask which one you prefer. Personally, I would prefer private companies pay their employees enough to survive, not have them rely on, as you would probably call them, "socialist government handouts" which is what is currently going on.

Certainly, we need more then just a higher minimum wage. We need to figure out how to train our work force to take higher paying jobs in a changing economy. But at the same time, a higher minimum wage IS needed because its simply better for people and the economy in the long run. Attaching it to inflation would be a good way to keep inflation from devalueing it in the future.

The problem with this argument is that productivity HAS been going up....and wages have been stagnating.

http://rortybomb.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/epi_productivity.jpg

So I think we're about due for an increase in the minimum wage regardless, especially going by the logic that an increase in productivity should lead to an increase in the value of work.

You have no idea what Socialism is, do you? America is the opposite of what Socialism is. Countries like Finland are far closer to Socialism, where ALL education is free even to foreigners. ALL healthcare is free. There are no insurance companies ripping you off when you get ill. There is not some much of a hierarchy there, because 97% of Finns are educated in public schools. There's no "prestigious" private schools. All taxes and fines are based off your income over there. Not only that, in actual "socialist" countries a decent amount of industries are owned by the state. Like in the UK from 1945 to 1979. Things like railway, mining, gas, electricity, telecommunications, car companies, even some media were ran by the state. This is alongside our healthcare and mail (the only things which weren't sold off under Margaret Thatcher and John Major). Around 1/4 of our economy was in the public sector before 1979. Regulations were also strong and the population was very unionised. 

Just because you have some sort of safety net in terms of benefits and foos stamps, that don't make America socialist. Most developed countries have this and they are all free market capitalist societies now. Also, if America is socialist why is inequality so high? Just comparing Compton, LA to Beverly Hills, LA just says it all. 

Anyway, the problem with the free market is they have NEVER paid their workers enough, even before the welfare state. It is just used as an excuse now to keep wages low. Fortunately, some working class people use the welfare state as an excuse not to work but it is hardly suprising when wages aren't high enough.