There's the legal minimum and then there's the prevailing market wage for low-skill work. That's somewhat unintuitive to measure, but I think it's really import

There's the legal minimum and then there's the prevailing market wage for low-skill work. That's somewhat unintuitive to measure, but I think it's really important for these studies. I'm not familiar with Germany, but in the US, federal minimum is $7.25, but almost no one earns that. I passed by a fast food place in a small town in very low cost Pennsylvania last week and the sign said $17/hr starting to serve fries. If the minimum wage was raised to $9.25, I assume there would be close to zero job losses and a minimal reduction in hours worked. $11, $14, probably the same. At $20, I'd expect to see problems. At $30, I think these problems would get catastrophic in terms of business closures and price increases. I don't see in the link that they modeled any of this, but without it, the study isn't super useful except as a talking point. At the end of the day, minimum wages are a price control, and price controls that impact and artificially shift the naturally occurring intersection point of supply and demand necessarily have consequences. Price controls on bread at $100 wouldn't cause problems. At $0.10 they would.