Current federal wage is $7.25 imagine having to double that.

I am no economist, but seems like it may destroy smaller businesses?
And lead to more companies using tech to replace human workers

That’s what big corps want. It’s an Antitrust violation codified as a law.

If you are running a small business and you can't afford to pay your workers a living wage, you shouldn't be hiring workers in the first place. Also, companies are already replacing as many jobs as possible with AI. Workers are expensive

Not all jobs are meant to be careers. Many jobs target teenagers just entering the workforce, teaching them critical skills they can use to move on to better jobs. "Burger flipper" isn't a career.

My first job was pizza cook, and I was done being a pizza cook after 6 months - never to return to that job. Many many jobs later I own a business with international customers. Burger flipper is a stepping stone, not a foundation.

but a lot of people do end up having minimum wage jobs as careers just because there aren't any job openings

Are they unable to gain skills? If someone is stuck in a minimum wage job, they aren't trying to get anything better.

Or there actually aren't any jobs for them to get

Sure thing, in your fantasy world the only way to get ahead is if the government forces it upon you. Fantastic! That takes all responsibility for prosperity away from the individual and places it squarely in the domain of the state. Welcome to socialism, just what you always wanted.

So suddenly there not being enough jobs is an unrealistic prospect that will NEVER happen, because economy do stuff, am I right? All I'm saying as that a lot of people work minimum wage because they have nowhere else to go.

they could be. They could just be unable to ascend. Not everyone can achieve their goals with hard work.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hard work will get you EVERYTHING!

From January 1992 to July 1992 I was homeless - as of 10 years ago I'm a business owner with international customers. The only people not able to ascend are the ones who dig deeper, because rock bottom isn't low enough.

There were times in my life when I had to choose between utility bills and food. Anyone who wants to get ahead can get ahead. Quit spending money on alcohol and cigarettes and drugs, and spend that money on education or tools or transportation. When my high school friends were partying on the weekends - I was taking classes. They're still living the same lives they were living right after high school.

Minimum wage was created to make sure that people working at those jobs could make a living wage because for some people burger flipper is their only option. People with no other options should be able to make a living wage at a small time job as a burger flipper or a pizza cook.

So you think people would rather get paid $0 than $7.25/hour? I'm struggling to understand your first point.

Yes, companies are already replacing them, but more than doubling how expensive workers are will probably more than double how fast they replace human labor.

Well, no. Any job that can be done better or as well by an AI will be replaced by an AI. It's as simple as that. And actually, if you don't have a job, you know that the government can just provide basic things like food stamps. In fact, this shows another flaw with having such a low minimum wage. People end up doing better without a minimum wage job because their government gives better benefits than their employer. We need a minimum wage high enough so that working is a more desirable option than not working.

I highly doubt that food stamps and government provided benefits are currently better than what you can get working a minimum wage job. Even if this was the case, the answer would be to rethink/redefine those government benefits, rather than raising the minimum wage.

Government benefits really are more desirable than working minimum wage. I'm not completely sure how much government benefits pay out, but given the choice between working a crap minimum wage job and staying home and getting a similar payout anyway, most people are going to pick staying home and having free time.

$7.25 is barely enough to rent a single-bedroom apartment in most cities.$7.25 translates to $15,080 a year if you are working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year. The rent alone there is over $14,000 per year. Imagine living off $1000 per year for food and water, along with no money at all for your savings. In fact, raising the minimum wage would most likely stimulate the economy, because it would allow small business owners to have some kind of fallback option if they are unsuccessful, it would allow people to get the starting funds for a business much faster. All in all, more small businesses, meaning more economy growth. You may even be thinking that an addition of $7.75 to the minimum wage would be too drastic of a change, and you are right, it is. Most people advocate for a slow change, hitting $15 by 2025 (By the way, every developed country increases their minimum wage every year based on inflation, except for the US. The US has a messed up Minimum wage system. We barely ever raise it, and when we do, it's by a lot at once. It's ridiculous).

Yes, I agree with the slow-raise idea.
Also like I said, I am no economy expert, so my opinions may be way off.

Well, I think we can agree on that. Bye, and have a good day

on my opinions being wrong?
Dang man buhbye

No, I meant with the slow-raise idea

yeah I know I was kidding. I followed you. good day

IF they locked wages into the cost of living on a national scale AND a local one.. say by the county cost of living to automatically rise.. the rich guys and big corporations would have to stop paying out so high on stock dividends and we could afford to work one job for a living. The American family might make a come back. Kids wouldn't end up going to prison from absentee parents.. etc. etc.

It would probably create more job openings, because people who used to work 2 jobs now only need to work one.

Raising pay would also increase cost of living exponentially.

Yeah, doubling it is ridiculous, and cost of living varies from area to area, and it would thus hit those with slower economies harder.

But Henry Ford paid his auto workers way more than anyone else did for such work at the time - before there was a minimum wage, mind you - and he created the middle class. Literally.
We'd all be poor if it wasn't for him, and corporations and their owners would be poorer as well, because more money in their pockets meant his employees could buy his car, and they did. No two SUVs in the two door garage in the suburbs if it wasn't for him. No road trips, no fancy restaurants, no brand new clothes instead of hand-me-downs, and if you wanted to contact anyone, save up and bring that dime to the drugstore to make a call. Bye Bye cells! Imgflip? What's that, a circus monkey act? Netflix binging? pfffft, try grandpa whipping out the fiddle for fine family entertainment by the fireplace!

There are people still alive who remember living like this. Sewing newspapers into the lining of your 3rd generation old wool coat to stay warm isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Costs of living are already going up exponentially. Raising the minimum wage wouldn't change that

Yes it does, and at a rate that makes the artificial wage setting’s purchase power erode quickly

true

And the other person would be unemployed while the remaining person put in 60 hours a week.

Please, provide some logic behind your reasoning

Money is a finite source. That means a business only has so much of it. When labor costs per person go up, you get rid of jobs to pay the higher rate, automate, and work the higher paid people remaining harder. Or worse, the business closes for lack of profitability, and no one has a job there. Get it?

Hate to break it to you, but the big businesses make a LOT of profit currently. Businesses like McDonalds can pay their workers over $15 and still make a profit without changing their prices. Heck, don't even get me started on Amazon. And, by the way, businesses are already automating as many jobs as possible. Increased minimum wage won't change that. It's as simple as: any job that can be replaced by an AI will be replaced by an AI.

“Can” and “will” have nothing in common. They make profit by keeping costs down. They will let people go, especially those who are still “developing” job skills.

Correction: They make absurd amounts of profit by keeping the costs down. By the way, the stereotype that only teens get minimum wage jobs is very incorrect. Most people working minimum wage are in their 30s, and shouldn't be having to work 2 jobs just to survive. Now, again, large companies can swallow the costs of an increased minimum wage. By the way, one way to keep the costs down is by replacing as many humans as possible with AI

"Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly-paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 8 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 1 percent of workers age 25 and older." - U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

You are talking about a completely different statistic

You stated that people that most people working minimum wage are in their 30s.

Exactly, not that most people in their 30s are working minimum wage

How so?

Taking away these jobs from people who habitually work min wage job is devistating. If they are not temporarily working low wages because they started over, returned to work force, etc. then they are most vulnerable to job cuts when wages increase. Higher pay jobs go to the higher trained, more experienced workers. Which leads to the question how a new adult out of school can get into the work force with no experience. The boss doesn’t want to pay a high wage to the inexperienced and pay someone to train the new worker.

Hate to break it to you, but $15/hour is not a high wage in the slightest

For small businesses, which drive the economy. It’s business failure, and the employee receives $0 an hr. This only leaves big business employment - and those jobs go to other countries which pay less than US wages. Open borders & illegal aliens working for less than even current min wage will fill even more lower pay positions. So American workers will lose. That’s what Biden wants - people dependent on a government hand out. Only market driven wage increases the country’s lifestyles.

For small businesses, it's a temporary setback. There will be more job openings because workers can afford to work 1 job instead of 2, so people will be able to work those jobs to gain funds to start a small business without going into crippling debt. Not to mention that the scenario you are predicting here is if the minimum wage were immediately doubled, but Biden's plan, is, in fact, a slow increase that will end by 2025. Hopefully, once that ends, the minimum wage will be increased based on inflation and productivity every year. Oh, and, by the way, The US has the lowest minimum wage out of all developed countries. How does that make you feel?

Depends on where you live and whether you have a good work ethic.

Low work ethic = low pay.

A work ethic won't change your pay unless you get seriously lucky

A good work ethic won't be changing the value of your money. $15 is enough to survive and put some into savings.

We have lower taxes than governments with higher wages and more socialist programs. So their standard of living is not better. A temp set back to small bus means closure in the real world. There is nothing temp about Permin higher wages. And if Biden is dragging it out over time the market may appropriately increase wages -assuming no open borders snd illegal workers - anyway. Mo is $10.30 an gr now snd will be $12 by 2023. Setting a National wage without regard to whether you live in New York City or rural Mississippi is absurd.

People working minimum wage don't get taxed. In Sweden, a place with one of the highest minimum wages, minimum wage workers don't get taxed. In the UK, with one of the most 'socialist' healthcare programs, you need to earn around £13,000 ($18,000 for y'all uneducated folks) to get taxed at all

"Replace Human with AI" that is very contradictory to what you are saying in soooooooooooo many different ways