Is raising minimum wage nationwide a horrible idea?

[Mr Khan]

BMaker11 said:

alrightiwill said:
It's funny how many people don't seem to understand what the minimum wage means and they just try to make arbitrary numbers relative to their own figure in their head.

You're earning $15 an hour already, great. Why are you complaining? You're not earning less because of other people earning more.

Minimum wage is supposed to be the lowest reasonable wage that someone can live off of. $15, $12, $20 etc are all arbitrary numbers. The question should be, Is the current wage high enough to support yourself with a modest lifestyle?

I'm not going to comment on the situation in the USA as I know very little in comparison to people living there. However, if someone is working 40 hours a week at Min wage and can't live a modest lifestyle or support themselves, well then it needs to be raised.

Someone posted a graph that showed the minimum wage decrease in value (since 1962 or around there?) so this should be also taken into account with inflation or value of the national currency.

Also another point at people saying "The company will just fire X amount of people and keep Y the same amount to keep the cost even" This is not true. If a company could fire you, they would regardless if your wage has been deemed to go up. Companies that make billions in profit layoff people all the time

If there are 5 excess staff, well, they're the fat that will be trimmed.

I will admit however that raising the wage could be used as an excuse to layoff people to avoid bad press. The 'recession' was used as an excuse by several companies posting massive profits to layoff thousands of staff citing 'economic difficulties'

Increased costs = prices passed on to the consumer. Or, more people having more money = suppliers seeing increased demand so they increase prices in order to maximize profits. I saw the video PDF posted (funny, it went from asking for $9/hr to $15/hr in just one year between the video posts) that said the costs would come out of profits, not increased prices. Not true, companies don't want their profit margins to decrease. They may be "in stiff competition for customers" but if companies are thinking "I don't want to make less now than I did before", they're all going to go in the same direction and pass the cost onto the consumer. So either way, my purchasing power decreases. Meaning I am making less if others make more (on a large scale like that). 

Also, define a "modest" lifestyle. I define it as being able to have a roof over your head, food on your table, and clothes on your back. Anything other than that is extra. Nobody is owed or entitled to "extra". You gotta work for that.

Minimum wage hikes won't necessarily be a cost increase across the board, however. Let's take employee turnover, for instance. Higher minimum wages would mean less turnover, and less turnover decreases recruitment costs, which are significant (quoted figures number in the thousands per employee, between advertising, recruiters' wages, paperwork processing, labor spent on training, and the deadweight loss from a new, inexperienced worker)

Then add back in the fact that places employing minimum wage workers (or near-min, like the gas station i work at) are likely to be DIRECT beneficiaries of the increased money given to those with a high marginal propensity to consume. If my wage practically doubled, i'd buy more snacks at work, for one. Poor folks shop at Wal Mart. Give poor folks more money, they'll spend more at Wal Mart. Wal Mart themselves would likely net benefit.