[grania]

We wouldn't need a minimum wage if

(1) US workers didn't have to compete with invader (legal and illegal) labor

(2) there were tariffs to protect the US labor market from unfair overseas competition and

(3) all of those rules, regulations, and taxes that supress individual and small business would disappear.

[caddie]

Yep Yep and Yep. All the things a sensible government used to do to people, and businesses... gone. Now they do the opposite, harass them.

Just like George III used to do.

[JoeFromSidney]

(2) there were tariffs to protect the US labor market from unfair overseas competition

There is no overseas competition for hamburger flippers. No matter how high or low our tariffs, they can't protect purely domestic operations.

[Rashputin]

All three of those things were true back when people point out that we had a very low minimum wage that didn't even apply across the board and things were good. Unfortunately, all a lot of them see is the minimum wage, not the lack of illegals, the existence of tariffs, and the absurdly burdensome regulations.

The problem is fifty years of exporting our industry so we can be a "post industrial" society, another great social engineering wet dream that was doomed from the start. Well, the "free trade, invisible hand" crowd have exactly what they wanted, industry moved to wherever the lowest cost labor on earth is without tariffs on what they ship to the US.

How's that "giant sucking sound" working out?

[Impy]

We don’t need a minimum wage, period.