Minimum wage is a crime against the poor
A fake scenario: President Obama takes the stage and makes an announcement. He has decided that barbers and salon stylists don’t make enough money, so he’s gonna raise the minimum price for a haircut up to $40. This will ensure that the hair-cutters of American get the money they deserve for the invaluable service they provide.
Any layperson can deduce what would happen. All barbershops would disappear, and high-end salons would live on. Amazingly, this logic is lost in an argument about the minimum wage. Phrases like “living wage” are thrown at us as though it means something tangible. Even if there is such a thing as a living wage, how the heck do we think a bunch of career politicians with no background in macroeconomics could possibly determine what it is? Why can’t each individual decide what they want to charge for their time?
When you implement a minimum wage, you are making it illegal for a poor person to sell services for less than that wage. You are making it illegal for them to provide labor to someone for a price they are willing to charge. This is not freedom. You can immerse yourself in the illusion that the minimum wage prevents employers from hurting poor people while it is the wage requirement itself that hurts them. Are these liberals telling us there really is no labor that is worth less than $6.55? Nothing?! If flipping burgers is worth $6.55 perhaps tasting burgers and giving your opinion is worth less.
Every time the minimum wage rises, various alternatives become fiscally viable to companies. The lines in the image above indicate the cost of a cashier to an employer over time. The price of a human increases while the price of a computer decreases. That red dot is the day sometime in the future when the minimum wage will get everyone fired. You raise it high enough, and companies will invariably automate EVERYTHING. Elevators used to have operators… a person would press the buttons for you. At some point they either asked for a raise, or people figured out that operating an elevator does not require any expertise. They were all fired. Gas stations used to include the personal care of your own attendant who would clean your windshield, check your oil, the works. At some point, the cost of this service exceeded what it was worth, and every last one of them was fired (New Jersey required full service until recently, and I hear Oregon does as well but I can’t confirm). You only hurt poor people by requiring they charge more for labor than their labor is worth.
YOU CANNOT HURT RICH PEOPLE BY HAVING A MINIMUM WAGE. THEY ARE TOO RICH. YOU ONLY HURT THE POOR.