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Comment by mcshicks | Hacker News Reader

US minimum wage has not increased since 2009 and is $7.50. How many people in the private sector are at the same job for 14 years with no pay increases. Minimum wage at a minimum should be tied to inflation and I think $15 an hour increase over 4 years is more than fair to employers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_S...

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What of the unemployment provoked by legally forcing the price of labor higher? Think about it: WHen the price of something goes up, do you buy more or less of it? One might as well call the minimum wage the "ceiling employment".

Why use our imaginations to “think about it”, when we can look at the data and see what actually happens in reality?

The minimum wage has jumped up several times in the past due to government updates, and it has gradually shrunk over time due to inflation, and neither of those things has been particularly correlated with employment rates

According to the BLS, workers earning the federal minimum wage or less represented only 1.4 percent of all hourly paid workers in 2021. Taking into account all workers (not just those who are hourly paid), this small fraction would shrink even further, so I wouldn't expect them to have much affect on the overall unemployment rate.

Minimum wage changes are counterproductive in almost all instances. They consume a large amount of political capital, are rendered pointless by inflation and penalise those who produce less value than the minimum.

There are better policies to protect poor workers, like reducing taxes on the poor or allowing government welfare for those with jobs. These help workers without distorting markets and hurting workers. The only case minimum wages are useful is if all the alternatives are impossible.

Is this your opinion or can you cite some sources. My biggest mandatory expense is medical insurance and I hardly think that is driven by the minimum wage.

I don’t know of any good sources that cover this in terms of comparing policies. But most of my points (eg inflation negating minimum wages and the whole discussion consuming political capital) are self evident. The most extreme example of minimum wages failing is South Africa. I’ve seen interviews where people in poverty there want it to be removed since it just leads to more unemployment and/or black market employment below the minimum.

I don’t understand the link to medical insurance. In my country poor people get free healthcare. Low wage earners still get taxed, which I think is immoral and is exactly the kind of policy discussion that minimum wage proponents smother.

My point was in the US medical inflation far outpaces all other non discretionary expenses and it's not because of the minimum wages. Minimum wages affect business that pay minimum wage and that's more like non essentials like eating out or going to the movies. I can't speak to the economics of South Africa but I'm not sure what happened there would necessarily apply in the US. At least it's not obvious to me.

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