Is raising minimum wage nationwide a horrible idea?

[thranx]

SamuelRSmith said:

DarkWraith said:
if minimum improves, everyone improves. skilled labor jobs will have to increase wages or lose their employees to walmart or staples or some other menial job where they can do nothing and get the same pay. the corporations aren't hurting one bit and can easily afford to retain talent. don't let anyone tell you otherwise, they are obviously clueless.

the concerns seem to come from the fear of the high school dropout flipping burgers making as much as someone who furthered their education and works in business or social work, etc. that will never happen, so that fear is irrational.

Large corporations don't employ everybody, hell, they don't even employ half. 99% of businesses in the USA employ 500 people or less.

 

"Some 19.6 million Americans work for companies employing fewer than 20 workers, 18.4 million work for firms employing between 20 and 99 workers, and 14.6 million work for firms with 100 to 499 workers. By contrast, 47.7 million Americans work for firms with 500 or more employees."

http://economics.about.com/od/smallbigbusiness/a/us_business.htm

Yeah, Walmart and McDonald's employ a bunch of people and could easily afford to pay higher wages.... which is exactly why they support higher minimum wages. Because they can easily pay it, while their smaller competitors will struggle, forcing smaller businesses to raise prices or shut down, and increasing the marketshare for the likes of Walmart and McDonald's.

Most Mc Donalds are franchised and privatly owned. Not owned by the Mc D's corp. So they could be considered a small business and a large i guess. I know the three mc donalds by me are privatly owned (2 by a former Mc D janitor that saved his money, worked hard, and bought 2 of them). So Mc D's does not employ most Mc D workers, rather they are under the employmnet of the owner of that location.