One:When I have to pay John James Sally Hector Bill and David another $2 an hour each, I need to get that extra money from somewhere. The politicians will say, "Reach into your own pocket- your rich, you don't need all that money" (One of the reasons they win the title Socialist of the Year.) In reality, I, the employer will either fire John to make room in the budget to keep the rest of the staff, or I will raise the price of my product,
But either option would be your decision, maintaining your own high standard of living as a business owner at the expense of either your customers or your staff. Generally most business owners don't want to scare off customers with high prices so they keep the staff wage bill down instead.
thus increasing the cost of living for everyone and increasing the unemployment rate.
Not necessarily, if people on obscenely high salaries and benefits took a cut and passed this on to those on the lower end of the scale thus reducing the gap between rich and poor then the poorest would have more money to spend on goods produced by businesses and the economy would grow.
Two: If it is good to raise the minimum wage and we can justify that it makes everyone happy, then why don't we increase it more? If everyone gets $7.50, why not pay them $20 an hour. Why not $50? Try to answer that question and you will realize the problem with the minimum wage increase.
People should be paid enough to ensure they have a decent standard of living, access to health care, and other incentives such as training programmes and career opportunities. At the moment, in many cases, this isn't happening.
