Increasing wages isn't going to change at all the skill levels available in the labor pool that companies can draw from.
It does actually. It increases the number of people who are willing to work these jobs, meaning that employers will have their choice of a much wider field of applicants, a field that will include higher-qualified, higher-skilled workers; workers who weren't willing to do these jobs for $7.25 hr, will be willing to do them for $15 an hour.
Prices will increase to offset the increased cost of labor, but consumer spending will also increase which will more than offset the escalation in prices.
No, it really won't.
You're talking about over $16,000 in additional revenue, per minimum wage employee, that a business would have to generate in order to simply maintain their current level of profitability. That's to say nothing of all the supervisors and assistant managers, making $10 - $15 an hour that are now going to have to be bumped up.
From where did people ever get this notion that businesses can simply generate additional revenue on demand, markets be damned?
It's been shown that higher wages for low income workers increases spending which feeds back into economic growth.
No it hasn't. Not ever. That's an economic fallacy that was disproven over 160 years ago by Frédéric Bastiat. Raising wages does not create economic growth, it redistributes wealth. The only thing that creates economic growth is production.
I'm sorry, but you're simply wrong on this one.
It does actually. It increases the number of people who are willing to work these jobs, meaning that employers will have their choice of a much wider field of applicants, a field that will include higher-qualified, higher-skilled workers; workers who weren't willing to do these jobs for $7.25 hr, will be willing to do them for $15 an hour.
No, it really won't.
You're talking about over $16,000 in additional revenue, per minimum wage employee, that a business would have to generate in order to simply maintain their current level of profitability. That's to say nothing of all the supervisors and assistant managers, making $10 - $15 an hour that are now going to have to be bumped up.
From where did people ever get this notion that businesses can simply generate additional revenue on demand, markets be damned?
No it hasn't. Not ever. That's an economic fallacy that was disproven over 160 years ago by Frédéric Bastiat. Raising wages does not create economic growth, it redistributes wealth. The only thing that creates economic growth is production.