3 ms·

Doubling the minimum wage does not cause costs to double. This is a very flawed analysis- the minimum wage doesn't affect the entire population (less than half!

• toohotatopic 7y ago
  You have overlooked a key part of my argument: Costs are low because the lower half cannot afford to pay more. Vendors have to keep low prices to compete for the hard earned Dollars. Give the lower half more money and things will simply cost more because they are able to spend the money. This alone will start a demand for higher wages which will end in a situation where everything will cost proportionally more for everybody. The only losers will be those with bonds and cash because inflation will eat away the value. Additionally, I don't think that you can ignore the supply chains. If you have a maid and you have to pay double, do you stomach the increased cost or are you going to ask for a rise yourself? And don't forget that you have to pay taxes. So you don't ask for her increase but you double it. Low wages are not for those who operate machines, where the wage doesn't matter because the value is created by the machine. Low wages exist where a huge part of the value is directly created by the person. So double that cost and you increase the prices of those goods. I don't know how big the low-wage part is relative to the entire economy. If it is minuscule, increasing minimum wage doesn't matter. But as the article says, it's almost 50% of the workforce, so I doubt that costs will only rise a small, proportional factor, if at all.