A lot of you simply don't understand cause and effect in the market, and only justify context using absurd numbers. It's like this: If there is no minimum wage, the market WILL speak. But the market is not the beast on a leash. The market will consume everything. The market is not, "good for americans". The market is "good for business". Business is not America. Business is global. Businesses are like independent entities. Businesses WILL start offering 3-4$ wages. People WILL take those jobs. It will justify other businesses to follow suit as competitive economics effect prices. A 1$ hamburger will become more important than a 4$ one, because workers have less access to pay for one. So businesses will have to cut costs, and lower wages. This is a spiraling effect that goes into the good paying jobs as well. Do you honestly believe that professions that make 30$ an hour will be unaffected? No. They will also lower their wages because the alternatives are way lower. This basically takes money out of everyone's pockets. Lower wages doesn't affect employees or businesses. Lower wages effects the economy as a WHOLE. It doesn't make rich people richer or poor people poorer. It shifts the bell curve from a 35k per year mean income to a lower figure. This in turn effects credit, purchasing power, property value, overseas trading, etc. Think about it. Just imagine, if we kept all the job rates currently what they are, and just introduced 30 years of no minimum wage. That means Johnny can't buy his friend's car. Or he can't afford insurance. Or those highschool kids can't afford to go to the mall or see movies, or get pizza. What is the result when a quarter of the country suddenly can't afford anything? Businesses have to lower the price of entry. What do businesses do when they start losing revenue? Do you see where this is going? It's a spiral. Now put it in a global context. You know how China is always buying our roads and buildings etc, etc. Imagine what happens when those roads and buildings suddenly start making less money.

In effect the market is setting that wage, as that's what his workers require to make ends met.

think of it the other way around. If that's the the wage people rewuire to make ends met, and he can't afford to pay that and therefore his employees have to take state benefits, isn't the restaurant owner also then technically relying on the government to prop up his business as well? Is that really in line with his own ethos?

in such a situation, you could potentially say that is the restaurant owner can't afford those wages, then his business is failing.

Most third world countries don't have people living by themselves. 

Even people in the US live 2.6 to a household. By comparison, the people of Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Cambodia live north of 4.5 to a household. 

Given that agriculture makes up a much larger percentage of these economies, it's a safe bet that they're working a lot more than 40 hours a week too. 

Interestingly enough, minimum wage in Seatle is still more than my above average montly salary here in Romania, but I expect that 7.7 $ before tax or something similar?

I do support this for poeple under 21. If you are young and have no experience these jobs are easy walk-in jobs with no requirements and you can make your first money on the side and learn how to work. Of course you are supposed to live with your parents or roomates so you can keep all of that income for yourself. My first job was one of these 6-7$ walk-in jobs that I had for several month before my studies began. I believe I earned around 5000$, my first real income.

So basically every school district in the country should be shut down because we work WAAAY WAAAY more than the 33-35 hours a week we get paid.

Btw St. Louis is the city with the highest crime/murder rate in the US - the population went from 850K to 310K in the last 60 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

Any job worth hiring someone full time to do should be worth paying them a livable wage for. If not, the job should not exist (at least not FT). If a company can't afford to pay its core employees livable wages, that company does not deserve to be in business.

I very much like this sentiment, but "livable wage" will always be a sticking point.

I waited tables when I was in college. It worked out to about $26K a year if I worked full time. That was plenty for a single guy with no responsibilities. 

That probably wouldn't be considered "livable" for a single mom with two kids though. Theoretically, that's what welfare is for. 

Such a person would qualify for medicaid or generous ACA subsidies for healthcare though (if healthcare wasn't offered through their job). She'd probably get WIC, and possibly low income housing subsidies.

I can simplify my wall into a brief couple of sentences.

It isn't wages that effects a country's value, it's costs. Ie, the MORE you can charge someone for a product, the more valuable that person is. It sounds heartless and it is, but economically speaking, our own global economic health is tied to the amount we are able to pay.
It is better off for the country that we pay 10x what another country might pay for the same goods.

Ie; China isn't overtaking us because it has lower wages. It's overtaking us because our companies are selling us out.