I see a lot of people say how there'll be businesses that go bust if they have to pay their workers a higher wage, but the question is, is that really a bad thing? I'm sure there were businesses that relied on slavery that went bust too once it was abolished, should we have kept slavery legal to ensure that didn't happen?

I live in the St. Louis area. Just to be clear it was only St. Louis city that had the minimum wage at $10, if I recall. The rest of Missouri had the normal minimum wage. I'm conflicted on this issue. I used to feel that minimum wage jobs should be held by mainly highschoolers tryin to earn some side money, but now that I've taught in North county St. Louis where there are a lot of poor people that depend on their family members working those jobs in order to make a living because they couldn't afford (or didn't want to, etc.) to go to college, I've changed my perspective on this. I still, in general, think for most of the country that minimum wage should not be high because it encourages complacency and laziness (I used to work full time as a para in schools and make $15 an hour, some places paid $13-14 an hour, and now people flipping burgers for $15? I doubt they will ever try to move out of that cause that's easy money), but in low income areas like the area I teach in, the minimum wage probably needs to be higher.

All this being said, it's ridiculous that people are setting up a standard for the national minimum wage to get to (such as $10 or $15). The living standard in Missouri is a LOT cheaper than living in Illinois, New York, California, or any other highly liberal state. The more liberal a state is, the higher taxes you have (Illinois is a COMPLETE nightmare in taxes, and they are STILL spending billions of dollars more than they have in tax revenue). So $10 in Missouri gets you a lot more than $10 in New York, therefore we in general probably don't need a minimum wage increase as much.

I live in teh St. Louis are as well and yes we do get things A LOT cheaper here as far as living goes than other places(depending on what area in St. Louis you might live in I.E North County, Olivette, Kirkwood, South County, U. City etc). But I muts say $10 should still be the minimum when it comes to wages. We are not THAT cheap.....

With automation workers in many fields cannot work cheap enough to keep up.  Even $1/hour in foriegn countries won't match a machine that can run 24/7 at 10x efficiency of a human.  We've had to adjust before, from agriculture to industrial to service based economies.  Some projections have humans as workers will become outdated by the end of the century.  Even mid to higher skilled job will be replaced as artificial intelligence advances in coming decades. 

In this event the drive for wages will simply be good economics as you need consumers to drive progress.  Even if it means people make so much more than they produce in the system, it will be required to avoid massive unemployment and depression conditions.  I think developed nations today are already seeing the beggining of this new transition as without taxes and programs to redistribute wealth concentrates in ~10% of the population slowing an economy.

I live in St. Charles actually, but used to live in Maryland Heights. Obviously the standard for minimum wage should go up with inflation and cost of living over the years (I think someon calculated out that if it went up proportionally, it would be like $20 an hour right now) so I get that. But one of the benefits of it being lower is then MORE people have jobs. The higher it goes, the higher unemployment gets through job consolidation or simply replacing humans with machines. Is it worth having some people better off while others lose their job and source of income for their families?

I guess this is where the free market guys exit.

If your business isn't making enough money then the people have spoken?

The minimum wage has always struck me as one of the worst ideas in all of left-wing politics.

If people can't make enough money to live off, help them through the government directly. Don't wreck businesses for that purpose. Let them pay whatever the hell they want.

If someone wants to offer $1 an hour for a job, let them. Almost no-one would bother applying for it.

Raising the minimum wage hasn't been working. Employers end up hiring fewer people or cutting their working hours. Recent studies after minimum wage increases have shown that low income earners ended up earning less overall due to reduced employment.

If your worth is not higher than minimum wage, why are you worth a raise?

Oh no i agree 100%......$10 should remain the minimum for franchises I would say and $7.70 for small busniness is fine because when you are starting off and building up then you can't afford to pay that $10. I just think the system needs work. The job scene here isn't currently the best but it is still managable so this here is not bad but depending on whoa ll it impacts is the issue imo.

Are you somehow comparing slavery to minimum wage?