Monday, April 16, 2012 8:53:55 AM
Minumum wage is not just a thing that should be raised/lowered at a whim, it's set where it is because of the market and the economy. I`m not saying it`s not low, I`m just saying it`s not very simple to just change minimum wage.
The bigger problem is that wages haven`t remained consistent with inflation. If this were the case, people wouldn`t be complaining about this, likely.
"No...what a business will do if he's forced to increase minimum wage is increase his profit margin to cover the cost."
For some businesses, and their customers, that may be a problem: the businesses where the labour costs are a high proportion of the cost of the finished product.
I can`t imagine this applies to all products. For those that have a small percentage of labour cost, the price rise would be minimal.
And the implied suggestion that the benefit to the worker will be robbed in the end by prices going up at the same rate as their pay is simplistic: it will only hurt them if the prices of the things they personally need to pay for go up, and I have yet to see anyone crunch the numbers to establish that, for instance, food, shelter and utilities have a large proportion of labour cost.