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a) Minimum wage is completely arbitrary. $7 in rural Alabama is very different than $7 in New York City.

b) It does not increase the standard of living, it only eliminates jobs or causes inflation. When I make a widget, the price is based on how much it costs to build. So if you increase the cost to build it (increasing wages), then I only have 2 options: lay people off to keep costs down (unemployment), or increase my sales price to cover the higher costs (inflation).

c) It is none of your or the government's business how much money I pay as a wage, or I make as a wage. It is a violation of privacy, and a violation of basic property rights. If you don't like the wage I pay, don't work for me. It is totally voluntary.

If you can't understand those reasons, then you truly are an idiot, and there is nothing I can do to help you.

You are such an azzhole and I doubt you have the intellectual chops to understand.

Minimum wage levels, when they were first enacted, were generally below most entry-level wages for uneducated and unskilled laborers.

Those low wage jobs were often the ONLY way a poor, young, unskilled and undereducated person to gain practical job skills they could use to improve themselves. The low wages they were paid was because they were less productive than the experienced workers. The pay generally reflected their lower productivity.

But when in the middle of last century the do-gooders decided to increase the minimum wage (more as a sop to their union buddies), what happened is that it threw a huge number of poor, young, unskilled and undereducated minorities out of work, because the wage exceeded the value of their work.

Without those entry-level jobs at low wages, many of those poor minority teens without education couldn't acquire the jobs skills they needed to get better jobs. Before the big minimum wage increase, black teens were employed at higher rates than white teens. Afterward, the black teen employment rate tumbled.

This is the general effect of minimum wage laws when they are misguided by a foolish belief that they should be made into "living wages" or some such nonsense. That was never the point of them, and it has caused more unemployment and the social problems that stem from it, starting with the disintegration of poor families which was exacerbated by welfare laws that paid poor women with children to NOT be married.) (So, yes, liberal do-gooderism can be credited with the destruction of the black family and community - nice going!)

Minimum wages that exceed the produtivity value of the worker only reduce the number of workers hired, because the person or business hiring them cannot meet the same payroll if the wages are increased involuntarily by government fiat.

Another problem is that the cost of living is vastly different in different regiions of the country, so a 1-wage-fits-all approach is silly and imposes different burdens on employers, especially on those in more rural, lower-cost of living areas.

One final point - as intended and understood by the authors and ratifiers of the Constitution, the Commerce clause was simply intended to only govern interstate trade and eliminating barriers to it. It was never meant to give government the power to regulate and control the private contract between a private employer and a private employee. This gross overreach has only been harmful to the country.

These types of jobs are meant for the youth as entry level jobs and not meant to support a family. Would you agree that a hamburger would would cost far more than it is worth if the min mum wage were $15.00?

Let's get serious. The minimum wage stops small businesses from hiring. Can you imagine a small business starting out could afford to pay minimum wage, and health care and all the other benefits that some people demand?

You haven't tapped into my dark side, because I do not have one.

MR

Minimum wages are entry level pay! This means you start at the bottom and work your way up with being on time and doing the work beyond your best!!

As you show that you know your stuff and are willing to work, your pay increases! As you improve at your task at hand and show the willingness to learn more and more, you are elevated to a high position of authority with more pay!!

That only makes you a better person and the company you work for better also!! This can be translated into more business which translates to more money and authority!!

A house can't be built from the roof to the basement!!!!!

Minimum wage was meant to be an entry level pay. Think your typical teenager. It was never meant to be the support for a family. Every time minimum wage has gone up so has unemployment in teens and young adults. What I do know is that hiking tax rates makes what I earn worth even less. See lib not so hard to understand.

I know people that make less than minimum wage, waitresses. They are only paid around 2 or 3 dollars an hour. And more is never a guarantee.

You are incorrect. The minimum wage is not $7.25. It is $0.00 which is what i made when I had no job.

Politicians can make the minimum wage $100.00 but it will not help the unemployed. We have a different problem than minimum wage. It's called unemployment.

I think the logic goes something like this:

If people would work for nothing, unemployment would be 0%

If people would work for nearly nothing, unemployment would be near 0%

Working for next to nothing is preferable to not working for nothing

Therefore, the minimum wage prevents people who want to work from working.

This is true, however, this chain of logic doesn't consider the fact that it drags down all wages.

The minimum wage should be $100/hour -- nobody can live on less than that.

Here's the way I see it:

You're paid what your skills are worth. Everything over that is just charity.