I had to post on this.
First Rex i may not agree with Rasta but when you start insulting peoples family you have crossed the line.
This is a debate forum and if you want to be childish and immature then just take it elsewhere. Rasta has already proven himself to be the bigger man by dropping it but you keep going just like a little kid that doesn't know when to stop.
Now back to the topic on hand.
Minimum wage is bad for small buisness, the middle class and the poor.
I would post more but it would seem as if someone already posted what I was going to say.
Here are a few links though
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba499/
http://www.newswithviews.com/Johnston/patrick5.htm
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/comsi...=0286-10382475
http://www.raiseminwage.org/id5.html
The truth is, wages are no different than prices, as both are driven by supply and demand. As soon as you have governmental influence interfering with the market, the market is no longer determining the proper wage and/or price. Having the market determine these things is the basis of what makes free market capitalism so successful. If government (more specifically politicians) attempt to adjust wages/prices to what they see fit, this limits supply and demand from determining the true values and makes the economy operate inefficiently.
You will always find the shortsighted answers that look only at immediate affects, such as the statement that these people deserve more money because the companies making the profits can afford it. Obviously, that is grossly flawed because the immediate affect might be helping that worker, but the broader affect is it limits the companies ability as it forces them to pay more for a job than it is worth, which ultimately affects the costs of good and the companies expansion abilities, which affects jobs. A shorter view of the same thing might be that if you raise the wage rates, then that company might not be able to afford as many jobs, so effectively you are helping some workers at the expense of others.
No one who truly understands free market economics can ever justify a minimum wage. I don't know where you live, but in the US we are just lucky that the minimum wage still low enough that its typically below the market rate for all jobs anyhow, so it has minimal effect.
Let me close with a great example:
Let's say I own a small factory. The factory produces about $100 worth of widgets every day, and requires a crew of seven people to operate at full efficiency.
Let's also say that this factory operates in a country where it is customary to pay workers by the day, and that $10 per day is a low but acceptable wage.
Now, I could pay my seven workers up to $14 per day, and still make a $2 profit. Very tight margin. Whatever the profit margin is, the fact is that I can use that profit to pay for my investors, who afterall, took all the financial risk to create these jobs. Also, I can use that money for expansion, thus providing more jobs to more people. So perhaps I decide to the wages at $10/day in order to accomplish these goals, and since I have willing workers (I am not holding a gun to their head to work for me), then its completely justified.
Now, let's say the government passes a law, requiring that all workers be paid a minimum of $15 per day. What happens?
The first thing that happens, the day I begin complying with the new minimum wage, is that my factory loses money: $5 per day, in fact. I am going to have to close down this company, and suddenly 7 people are now out of work, not paying taxes, and have no money to buy goods from anyone.
In a nutshell, the government has decided that even though I had willing workers, that my product was not profitable enough to exist and took a viable business with willing employees and flushed it right out of the market on the basis of helping the workers. Brilliant
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