Republican Presidential Candidate Debate on CNN

[DGuller]

It has a minimal effect at most because employers will look at is as just another cost of doing business and pass it along to their customers directly or indirectly.

That depends on the elasticity of the another set of supply and demand curves.  In general the extra cost is split between employers and customers.

Raising the minimum wage probably pushes inflation up more than it does unemployment.  Which of course ultimately defeats the purpose of raising it in the first place.

Not really.  Even if your argument is true, the resulting extra inflation doesn't have to defeat the purpose of minimum wages.  Inflation goes up for everyone, while minimum wage goes up only for a small subset of the workforce.  Therefore, the percentage increase of inflation is not going to be nearly as high as the percentage increase of minimum wage.

[Valmy]

Of course, raising the minimum wage has nothing to do with economic realities and everything to do with trying to buy votes when the perception is there that votes need to be bought.

Yep it just provides warm fuzzies more than has any real effects.  The important labor laws are the ones that limit hours and child labor and mandate holidays and safety and that sort of thing.  Those are the ones that effect employment in my totally amatuerish opinion.

[jimmy olsen]

Since this is thread about insane Republicans, this might as well go here.  Romney, while talking to a bunch of unemployed people, joked that he is unemployed as well.   Good timing.

From what I saw they laughed, so his joke was a success.

[Zanza]

We don't have a minimum wage in Germany, but I don't think that affects unemployment. We had very high unemployment a couple of years ago and have now reduced it a bit, but that was more related to more flexible hiring and firing as well as reduced payroll taxes for employers. The lower bound of what people will work for here is probably set by what you get from social security without working at all...

[Norgy]

Re: the minimum wage.

Aren't the main areas of minimum wage jobs the lower end of the service sector, like people stacking shelves in supermarkets and the likes? There are, I believe, a limit to how many people are needed to do menial jobs, and even without a minimum wage, the black market of hiring paperless immigrants to do whatever jobs other people won't do, like gardening and low-wage physical labour impacts that particular segment of the economy too. I suppose you could end unemployment by creating a million snitches who'd travel the country to report on people who employ illegal immigrants.

Of course, wages do impact the willingness to hire. I don't think anyone would argue against that. That aside, the service industry, where these jobs are created naturally depends on growth in other areas of the economy. There'll be no incentive to hire even if people decided to work for free if no-one has disposable income, and rather than focusing on the minimum wage, it'd be a good idea to identify which sectors could spur that future growth to ensure that there will be enough McJobs to complain about instead.


Side note:
Norway's in a dangerous position in that regard, since affluent lifestyles have removed any incentive to work the lower end of the service sector ladder. Immigrants from Sweden and Eastern Europe mainly take those jobs while Norwegians dream of winning the lottery and going on television. Of course, that's oversimplified, but the general trend is the same as the Persian Gulf state with Kuwait as the prime example, so all we need is for Slargos to grow a moustache and go back to Sweden and claim dictatorial powers to repeat history. Just remember to stay off the holy places when you come to bail us out.

[Viking]

BTW, my holy places are my local pubs, all of them.

[Slargos]

Alcohol will be outlawed. 

[MadImmortalMan]

The lower bound of what people will work for here is probably set by what you get from social security without working at all...

Basically serves the same function as a minimum wage, I would think.