I don't follow “the news” much, as it tends to lower my already low faith in humanity. I do, on occasion, see an article or two regarding the idea of a $15/hr minimum wage. I suppose I have a “Spock”-like intellectual viewpoint of economics (and I don't mind admitting I tend towards a more free market model a'la Milton Friedman. I suppose the fact that Friedman was an economist who enjoyed mathematics is part of the attraction and from what I understand, he was until the end a student of mathematical modeling and introduced many mathematical methods to the field of economics). While I'm more or less apolitical (Democrats, Republicans, Independents..all are equally annoying), I suppose I'm more or less an “idealistic anarchist”, meaning I base my political, social, and economic viewpoint from the vantage of someone who: a)believes all humans are basically good; b)believes there are no easy solutions to problems and social change takes time; c) nothing can be defined in a list from a to z or 1 to 10. I'm equally influenced by Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, Marcus Garvey, Milton Friedman, Machiavelli, and any other person with an intelligent, well thought out opinion. With that being said:
I do not support the $15/hr minimum wage hike. Like sudoku, I will use no mathematics..only logic. If minimum wage is $15/hr, consider the following scenario:
McDonald's offers a $1 menu (..among other things. In our scenario, we're pretending that people are actually broke and in need of more money, and as a result buy the most food for the least amount of money). Minimum wage is $15/hr. For one employee to make minimum wage, they have to sell 15 $1 menu items every hour. On the rare occasion I'm at a McDonald's, I notice at least 3 people working every time. So now it's 3 people making $15/hr and even if we don't limit ourselves to the $1 menu, we end up spending more on labour than we can pay. Every business with 3 people working has to make at least $45/hr to break even just on wages (ok, there's some math.. but not, like, abstract math). The only way to sustain this would be to raise prices. But then $15/hr doesn't buy you as much. If the $1 menu becomes the $5 menu to keep a major corporation afloat, imagine what happens to the “indie” stores. Minimum wage hikes hurt small businesses more than any other group. Small businesses tend to run on no-to-negative profits, at least in their first few years. Since wholesalers and suppliers will also have to raise their prices (to meet the needs of their warehousers, janitors, drivers, etc.), the only one's left standing are the big corporations that minimum wage hikers seem to detest so much. In “1st world problem”-terms... who can afford to have the most employees while selling goods at the lowest price: Walmart or your local Co-Op? Walmart simply has more money in hand to weather the storm when $15/hr hits than your local Co-Op does. They can keep more people on pay roll and will be able to adjust their prices more gradually. A small business will have to raise prices immediately (and likely drastically to compensate for labour and product to maintain a “barely making it” profit margin (if, indeed, they're able to make any profit)).
Really, I don't know how else to illustrate my feelings on the “$15/hr” debate. Personally, I enjoy diversity. I like having the ability to have business relationships with people who actually care about what they do. A local mechanic (who you might view as a po-dunk hillbilly) is more likely to enjoy and appreciate working on a car than someone working at a McAuto-dealer (who probably could care less about cars and only cares that fixing cars pays better than flipping patties). The local book seller might care more about literature than the McBook-seller and they might be more willing to sit and have a conversation with you about a book (...or not if they're too busy to talk...).
It's a type of “multi-value” pigeonhole effect (ok, that's sort of absract math). Raise minimum wage and the price of labour rises AND the price of goods rises. It's called inflation.
Honestly, if $15+/hr minimum wage is what it takes to make the world economy crumble to the point where all we're left with is a world with no money, and just people doing what they love or facilitating people who do what they love, then I'm good with it. This goes back the the “idealistic” part of my belief system. People need motivation, and more often than not motivation seems to come from what I call mindless greed (whether that greed be for money, power, or otherwise is beside the point...doing something for reasons other than the love of doing it is almost always the result of a type of “mindless greed”; or maybe the better appellation would be “materialistic greed”. Either way, it's a negative greed based more on domination of surrounding entities than it is a positive greed based more on the existence of a defined self in a world of co-operative entities). If we lived in a world where all we could do is what makes us happy and doesn't harm anybody else, I would still do mathematics and explore wilderness and cook food I like and drive a truck that has a better chance of climbing a rutted out backwoods mountain road than it does of impressing some Bajan Hepburn-esque gamine beauty. I suppose the fact that humanity keeps striving to find the easiest way to make the most money by doing the least amount of work proves I'm in a minority in a materialistic world.
*A note: the non-rhetorical/rant-orical elements of the above (ie; the actual economical arguments and considerations of raising minimum so drastically) are mostly derived from chapter 8 of Milton Friedman's "Money Mischief". Essentially, the argument is that a fiat paper money system with no real "standard" to be weighed against allows for destructive inflation. [Controlled inflation can be good] Since money is simply made by pulling out the printing presses and then sent out to one type source/output-centre or another, (eg; an increased minimum wage whose funds are achieved by making new money, not a redistribution of already existing money) the cost of everything (wages, products, etc.) will constantly be forced to inflate along with this new money being distributed into society from the sources.. Dr. Friedman gives a more eloquent, analytical picture of inflation in his book (especially Ch. 8). I find his examples fair an balanced: he shows how uncontrolled inflation destroys economies both capitalist and socialist, both modern and ancient, both democratic and fascist (as well as in-betweeners with respect to the extremes just mentioned). It's food for thought, if nothing else. Redistribution of wealth isn't necessarily a great alternative either. If you distribute $1billion dollars to every person in the world, every person gets significantly less than a dollar. So there has to be some sort of synthesis of ideas: the good points of capitalism, socialism, and whatever other-ism. And then we have to some how all agree on what constitutes "good points".
edit(4/29/16): One thing I didn't mention is the significance that raising the minimum wage and it's consequences on welfare (eg; social security, the newly minted health care, relief supplies). I would consider it obvious that with wages and prices at a hyperinflated level, the current welfare system will be even LESS able to sustain itself (emphasis added, because the current system is obviously unsustainable). If people are truly committed to hyperinflation, then there needs to be a gradual climb to that point, with time to adjust welfare and other government funded programmes. Because $15/hr. means even government employees (who's jobs are already being scaled back) have to make that. And you just know politicians are going to vote to raise their wages, because they're not going to be happy having only just a little bit more than middle management at a mid-sized corporation. I'll let real economists calculate the new costs of things like fixing roads, maintaining public lands, enforcing regulations (environmental and such) with less employees.... I just feel like none of this is being thought through very well.
edit (12/28/16)
The more I look into it, I see a UBI (universal basic income) as a better option than a $15/hr minimum wage. My reasoning for this viewpoint is as follows
1) It sets a definite poverty level. If everyone has a basic income of at least a set minimum (say, $15,000 per year), then there's nobody living BELOW poverty level. If you choose a $15/hr minimum wage, ONLY those who are employed reap any kind of benefit. A UBI is more of an "economic equalizer" than a $15/hr minimum wage.
2) A UBI doesn't neccesarily create a "lazy" population. By this I mean that a minimum income (again, say $15000/yr) will still only cover basic needs. As someone who personally lives off (approximately) $15,000 per year, I can live comfotably (shelter, food, gasoline for a [bought-used] car, medicine, and the occasional luxury like used DVD's or a laptop). If you're like me and you don't hang out with people slash don't spend much money on "going out" and you're wise with purchaces and you live in a relatively cheap area, you can get by. Most people like luxuries like going out with friends or having cable/internet/phone bundles or whatever. Most people (seem to) want kids and such. So the motivation to work to make money is still there. For most people.
3)Following from that, you open the job market up a bit because more people who would have formerly worked full time to make enough for basics AND minor luxuries could have both by working part-time if they're also living off of a UBI. Many fulltime jobs for one person could then be split into part time jobs for two people. For example, a department store worker might choose to reduce their hours from 40/week to 25/week under a UBI. The remaining 15hrs/week could be filled by another person looking to supplement their own UBI. In a way, it eliminates things like overtime that employers seem so adverse to paying. The UBI would also insure against major economic drop-offs in times of higher unemployment due to inevitable economic "hiccups" (eg; extreme market fluctuations or a production centre closing with 1,500 people instantly unemployeed).
4)It would help sharply reduce things like homelessness. Homelessness will never be completely eliminated because things like alcohol and hard-drug (eg; meth and opiate/coca-derived) addiction and certain severe mental illnessess will, themselves, never be eliminated. Many people facing or experiencing homelessness are NOT victims of addiction or mental illness and are simply victimized by a sometimes-volitile economic system. A UBI is especially helpful to those particular people who are "on the cusp", so to speak, because of situations related STRICTLY to income.
5)It helps alleviate certain burdens on disability, HUD, and other social security type tax systems. Again, if people have a certain amount, they need less in terms of help from a government aid of some kind.
The most difficult thing to swallow with a UBI would be irresponsibility on the part of those recieving "something for nothing". Since a UBI would (assumably) be dispersed by some government agency, I don't see why it would be so far-fetched to say "Have the government agency disperse the funds in a way suchh that the funds go directly to payment of rent, food, etc.". I think a good model is the Food Support debit card system. You can't use it for luxuries and un-necessaries (eg; booze and smokes). Likewise a similar system could be set up where a UBI card could be used to pay for rent/housing, food and similar basic needs. This doesn't 100% guard against abuse of the system, but it SHOULD severly dibilitate the ability to abuse such a system.
Food for thought, anyway. I'll probably write a "pro-UBI" post at some point in the future..