re: Wal-Mart will pay hourly associates at least $9 an hour

quote:

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and this is how its supposed to work, let the business decide what to pay the employees, not have the government force a minimum wage on the business

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The big problem with that is businesses decide what they pay employees based on the labor market demands.
But the labor market demands are screwed up because of welfare and government assistance.

A person making $7.25 an hour is not a content person. $290 gross/week is not enough to live off of, assuming 40 hour work weeks. They will demand more.

A person making $7.25 an hour and automatically getting welfare to make ends meet is a different story. They'll be a lot more content to stay that way.

Thus you have an indirect subsidy of Walmart's labor by the government, and labor rates will not increase the way they would in a more free market. In order to fix the problem that welfare created, you'd need to meddle more with the market in the form of minimum wage.