$15/hr is one way to avoid the underclass. Who would hire illiterate mexicans or blacks when they can hire college trained whites for $15/hr.
Dr. Walter E. Williams can explain it better than I...
It’s funny you should mention that. I heard an interview on Bloomberg Radio last year with an economist who made that exact point. He said the whole push towards a higher minimum wage is intended to provide a half-decent living to capable, competent people in the middle-age group up to retirement age who have been left permanently unemployed by economic circumstances and/or collapses of their own industries.