I actually heard someone say a minimum wage increase is going cause problems for manufacturing. That is laughable, since pretty much all manufacturing, R & D and assembly jobs pay more than minimum wage (and more than $15 a hour). It is a fallacy to say it will effect these jobs or cause more manufacturing jobs to be outsource. There are many call center jobs that will be outsourced, but then again most of those job have already been outsourced. Best way to find out what the weather is like in India is to call your customer service line.
The real issue is inflation. The minimum wage jobs that are out there are in agriculture (yep not all are illegals - in fact most aren't illegals), fast food, super-markets, restaurants (not really chiefs or servers, but bus boys, dish washers), retail, clothing etc. All these are consumer driven industries that have small margins. When you increase the cost on these industries, they will have to charge more. It's a fact of life.
If we are hell-bent on increasing minimum wage (which I do not think is a bad idea), then we need to start eliminating some of the other costs to doing business in the US. Regulatory costs, compliance cost (and this is coming from a lawyer in a global corporation), licensing fees, accounting costs, taxation burdens etc.
One thing for sure is that minimum wage jobs should pay more than welfare!
The real issue is inflation. The minimum wage jobs that are out there are in agriculture (yep not all are illegals - in fact most aren't illegals), fast food, super-markets, restaurants (not really chiefs or servers, but bus boys, dish washers), retail, clothing etc. All these are consumer driven industries that have small margins. When you increase the cost on these industries, they will have to charge more. It's a fact of life.
If we are hell-bent on increasing minimum wage (which I do not think is a bad idea), then we need to start eliminating some of the other costs to doing business in the US. Regulatory costs, compliance cost (and this is coming from a lawyer in a global corporation), licensing fees, accounting costs, taxation burdens etc.
One thing for sure is that minimum wage jobs should pay more than welfare!