"They'll just raise prices if thy raise the minimum wage."

[Heywood]

Why do you think individuals are incapable of negotiating a fair wage?

Because the introductory job industry is sewn up by the fast food industry and places like Walmart, who refuse to pay their employees a living wage, and have them cash a McWelfare check because they don't pay enough for employees to live off even full time.

I'm having Déjà Vu, didn't we already go over this?

In places like California, we have so much illegal labor willing to work for in some cases, below minimum, that companies are willing to hire them for the jobs high school and college kids used to occupy, and have run the pay for skilled labor industries like construction and transport into the ground. They lower overhead for the company because they don't expect health care benefits or pay taxes, and the employer gets to excuse hiring illegal labor due to the hostile tax and insurance environment of running a buisiness in California.

When minimum wage was first implemented in this country some people who were in favor for it argued it was necessary because wages were being depressed by blacks who were willing to work for less. Construction gangs were being formed in the South which would travel to the north and underbid all the local labor.

Before minimum wage the unemployment rate for blacks was the same or lower than it was for whites. After minimum wage, black unemployment shot way up. Implementing a minimum wage was probably one the most destructive things we did to the black community. It resulted in multiple generations of poverty.

If someone gets out of jail having paid a price for a crime would you hire them? Why should you if you have to pay them the same wage as someone with no criminal history? Why take the chance on them? If there was no minimum wage, ex-cons could market their labor for less, get a job, set a record of actually going straight, and then demand a higher wage. Minimum wage traps people in poverty and into lives of crime.