“paltry sum of $7.25 an hour”
They are already calling for $20 per hour! Give them a little time and it will be $30. It will always go up. When the first increase fails, they call for a second. That will fail too, and they will demand more, leading to another failure.....(repeat until doomsday.)
There was always one response to MW increases, since customers would only tolerate so much price increase the only place to recoup profits was by cutting hours and shrinking the the number of personnel.
What is left out of every article I see is what happens to all the people who don't get a wage increase, people like those on social security or higher wage earners that don't get a increase, when all other prices go up in response to MW increases, or the fact that the only people who win from increases are local, state and federal governments from increased tax revenue.
Certainly the minimum wage worker doesn't, as prices go up, hours go down and that wonderful other effect of only the strong survive as marginal employees can no longer be carried and are laid off so that the strong capable employees can be kept on payroll.........albeit working harder with less support.
This has been the historic result of MW increases and anyone paying attention can see it happening now wherever the $15 'Living Wage' has been implemented. Oh with one other accelerated result, businesses giving up and shutting down because the owners simply cannot afford to stay open.
Charts and graphs don't always reflect the reality at the bottom of the pond, plus what I noticed that the earliest dates used reflected a time when America had many more factory and retail jobs than we do today.
I did not read the entire piece, and I have not read every single comment in this thread. But so far what I notice is that the other implications of minimum wage and high minimum wage are being ignored.
How do you calculate lost work experience for the youngest and least qualified in our society, primarily teenagers?
When minimum wages go up businesses that can stay in business and absorb it tend to fill these positions with more experienced people, rather than inexperienced first time job Seekers. So, we end up with a generation or two with no understanding of the things that are needed to earn their way in life. Reliability, initiative, an understanding that if you don’t work you will be flipping burgers for the rest of your life.
When I was young I had the usual jobs at minimum wage, it taught me that I was never going to spend my life in that position.
Universities are a 4-year vacation with a slight chance of learning something useful.
For those with no memory wage and price controls are miserable policy failures...