Why is it the employer's responsibility to provide a living wage?

[Mister Agenda]

Does anyone here own a small business and if so what do you pay your employees?

I don't own a business, but I run a department of mostly entry-level employees. The least any of my associates is making right now is 9.30 an hour; the most is 12.92 an hour. I make around twice as much as my highest-paid associate.

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People are generally very good at determining the fair value of something. You would have me believe that somehow, when it comes to labor...people become very stupid and need the government to negotiate for them. I just don't accept that.......people are pretty good at exchanges.

In aggregate perhaps, but individuals getting cheated is common enough. One of my concerns with altering wages by fiat is that prices are signals, and changing the signal reduces its value as a source of information. Labor prices tell us how much different kinds of work are valued by employers, which is a good thing to know when getting education and training,

I don't think there's aggregate information on productivity increases for minimum wage jobs, but in low-service food provision, the minimum wage has been rising much faster than the productivity of their low-wage workers. Improving productivity in these jobs could make them more valuable to employers and justify higher pay.

Some people on this thread have been very straightforward about thinking that a business that really can't afford to pay low skill workers what they think they should be making should go out of business...I've been a low-skilled minimum wage earner, and it would not have been my preference to get a nice raise but lose my job becasue my employer went out of business. Just sayin'.