re: Minimum Wage drives Inflation

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I am for having an elastically appropriate minimum wage

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Then you should be for a banning of the federal and state level minimum wages.

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Most Americans aren't farmers anymore

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While a truism, it has nothing to do with my point. We built the world's most significant economy, the world's industrial base with no minimum wage. It wasn't implemented until the late 1930s (along with a lot of other bad ideas from Marx and Engels).

All increasing minimum wage accomplishes is to deprive younger/unskilled workers of the opportunity to have a job or entry level training opportunity to get in the door and develop skills and/or a work ethic. It allows the government to redefine poverty at a higher level.

It raises NO ONE from poverty, despite your assertions/implications. It increases NO ONE's standard of living. It merely offers the illusion of more money in exchange for votes. It's not even a wash in that respect, it is counter-productive.

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All increasing minimum wage accomplishes is to deprive younger/unskilled workers of the opportunity to have a job or entry level training opportunity to get in the door and develop skills and/or a work ethic. It allows the government to redefine poverty at a higher level.

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That will happen if you raise it too high. Minimum wage only makes sense when markets are inefficient. Markets are always various levels of inefficient though.

Those younger and unskilled workers won't have a reason to develop their skills if they aren't paid enough for it to be worth their while.

I will give you your point that markets can be efficient enough to not need minimum wage at all, but if you leave it low enough, it just creates a nice safety net. I assume you are for keeping minimum wage at $7.25/hr, and not abolishing it entirely, am I wrong? I would like to raise a counter question and ask how removing it entirely would benefit society if the market values most jobs at more than $7.25 already. What's the benefit to gutting the system entirely?

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I assume you are for keeping minimum wage at $7.25/hr, and not abolishing it entirely, am I wrong?

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I want minimum wage laws to be abolished, yes.

I am against price controls.

Increasing minimum wage does nothing at all in terms of purchasing power. The market will adjust. In the end they’ll have more money, but the same exact buying power.

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it benefits, temporarily, the people who make minimum wage.

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In many cases it doesn’t even benefit them. Employers may decide to keep those workers even with the higher wages, but find a way to reduce other pecuniary benefits.

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I assume you are for keeping minimum wage at $7.25/hr, and not abolishing it entirely, am I wrong?

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I am for abolishing it entirely.

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I would like to raise a counter question and ask how removing it entirely would benefit society if the market values most jobs at more than $7.25 already.

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It allows a much greater gradient of wages for entry level, training positions, youth jobs, student jobs, allowing some unpaid positions (internships) to transition to (albeit quite lowly) paid positions - the flexibility it allows for teenagers/trainees alone is a huge benefit to all involved.

And folks won't stay in these jobs very long - they will either prove they're not worth that during the probationary period (and be discharged) or get a competitive wage if they are (to avoid them getting poached by competing employers).

The higher you raise the cost to creating jobs, the fewer jobs you will have - that's ECON 101.

My big issue with minimum wage is this:

it does what NUMEROUS OTHER POTENTIAL POLICIES COULD DO, but also does something numeous other policies wouldn't do- namely, increasing unemployment.

Expanding the EITC, creating some new lump sum govt assistance, etc, would raise the income of the poor without threatening their job prospects.

that's my issue with the minimum wage. It is a vastly inferior method of helping the poor than other public policy.

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It is a vastly inferior method of helping the poor than other public policy.

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Ultimately that's why I'm not in love with the idea of $15/hr minimum wage

Even if it were perfect, you get price shock by more than doubling it overnight. Nothing good can come from big jumps like that