The day that flipping burgers and stocking groceries is paid the same as entry level IT work, paid engineering internships, etc....it'll be a sad day. People who actually put in the time and work to get a skill are pretty much told "you're equal to Joe Schmo who doesn't want to do anything more rewarding in his life than work at Burger King".

Or, people in already higher paying jobs will say "if Joe Schmo is getting $15/hr, I want $25/hr. I'm not gonna bust my balls 50 hours a week just to make the same as some guy who never did anything with his life. I'll just go do that easy job instead if I don't get a raise".

If that happens, then wage disparities will still exist, minimum wage workers will still be on the bottom rung, and with "skilled" workers being paid even more money, that'll just make prices of goods go up to offset the added costs.

Long story short, 0 to low skilled workers are gonna be in the same predicament they've always been in. Yea, it'll be all hunky dory at first when you're making double what you make now, but once the market adjusts, that $15/hr will have the same value as $7.25/hr you're making now.

If person A and person B have an agreement to exchange a certain amount of money for a certain amount of labor, and you don't like it, that doesn't give you the right to extort fines from them or beat them, kidnap them, or shoot them.

Minimum wage laws are wrong in any form whether you commit the aggressions yourself or whether 1 million people get together and vote to commit the aggressions.

I don't see the point getting into a discussion on economics when you are talking about immoral acts.

Very true. Although the economics discussion is always very interesting.

The thing is that they constantly have work to do.  I get paid $20/hour at an IT office coop position and half the time I am just waiting for something to do or its a simple task.  

Sure it took a lot of school and money to get here, but they do more work than me even if it doesn't require as much knowledge. 

And they are not talking about a $5/hour pay increase.  More like $8.25 to $10.  

Having not read the thread I can tell you it's wrong. People talk about how the minimum wage in Australia is $15. But in Aus the price of things is far more expensive than it is in America, to the point that the minimum wages is about the same between the two. You raise the minimum wage, you raise the price of everything, thats economics.

Is there no wiggle room where a min. wage worker can afford to live on their salary without facing harsh poverty issues?  You make it sound impossible.

No. You are confusing rising cost with inflation. Rising cost has to do with the value of our goods going up, while inflation is a loss of value in our money. Truth is that when you account for inflation Minimum wage has actually been going down for over 40 years. $10 an hour minimum wage would actually only bring minimum wage up to being equal to what minimum wage was in late 1960's

Depends if "live on their salary" means being single with an iPhone, a plasma TV, a BMW SUV with 26" rims and 6 kids by different daddies as it seems to be....

The problem isn't minimum wage, it's unrealistic expectations of what sort of lifestyle it supports, misunderstandimg of needs vs wants, misplaced priorities, and unrealistic minimum lifestyle status in general.

"I can't feed ma 15 kids and my mortgage and BMW payment on minimum wage." Guess what, baller, you're not supposed to be able to.

Rising cost is inflation (aka lower value of money). In a market economy the price of the same good should go down over time. It's funny that you say that rising cost has nothing to do with inflation and then show how it does when explaining that minimum wage (i.e. cost of labor) should actually be much higher if we were to take inflation into account. Actually, I think the minimum wage would be much higher if not for the lower value of the dollar. That's all on the government though.

I thought inflation is both the loss of value of money and increase in prices. So if incomes rise, then demand will rise too, and an increase in demand always results in an increase in prices. Also, an increase in minimum wages will increase costs for suppliers and so that will also make them increase prices as well.