What's your opinion on minimum wage laws? Good or bad legislation?

Minimum wage laws are both efficient and detrimental to a society's well being. At one part, they provide more for those who work at minimum wage jobs. But they also increase the price of goods, here let me explain: Because the company has to pay more to a worker, the company has to earn more on products to make up for that increase in wages. The company will most likely increase prices which no one likes. Yes, this can be passed by a single law, however just like everything else, not everybody enforces the law. There is the flawed part of the legislation. To go to an extreme, the US appears to be communistic. This is because the Government is beginning to regulate what PRIVATE businesses can and cannot do. *I do not say this about the country, im just explaining why people say that the US seems like a communist country.

I would argue that yes, you can change a person's wage simply by passing a law. It is observable and confirmed every day in the workplace. A business owner needs to feel the pressure from his employee to raise the employee's wage. There has to be an expectation from the employee. Employers often have incentives in place to raise an employee's wage after the employee reaches a certain level of skill or a certain number of months or years of service. End results: I suggest that the real result is negative. When the minimum wage goes up, the employer cannot simply pass the cost onto the client. The employer tries to find ways of containing costs. That can mean making the employee work harder and reduce the employee's hours to save money but get the same amount of work. It can mean replacing the employee with a machine or system that is cheaper. So minimum wage laws, while being seen as "humane," might actually have the opposite effect.

I'm probably going to get a lot of thumbs down for this but let me propose something radical. Minimum wage laws are largely IRRELEVANT. I've worked many many jobs in my years in the job market. I started in fast food and bagging groceries in high school; worked as a janitor, a receptionist, mail clerk, and a waiter while in college; and had a decent entry-level management job while going to grad school. The only time I ever earned the minimum wage was as a waiter and the hourly that I earned just in tips was well above the minimum wage. Hidden in that brief history of my life is the reason I think minimum wage laws are, at present, largely irrelevant. Very, very few people actually get paid the minimum wage. Even the least skilled, least experienced person trying to get a job while in high school won't be offered a job that pays minimum wage. The only exception to this is people who get hospitality jobs and earn tips which push their earnings well above the minimum wage.

Minimum wage rates often harm employment rates, but this doesn't mean they should just be discarded. A guaranteed minimum income (provided by the state) for those in employment would work just as well, without making it so costly to employ people to the employer. And yes, there is always going to be the problem that if people are prepared to work for less, they will do so whether or not it is legal.

When they increase the minimum wage this is the worst for all. What do those making minimum wage need? They need the very basics and these items, such as food go way up. This more than takes away from the poor and totally offsets the little wage increase they received. The middle class loose too. So, who benefits? We know who, the politicians that tell us they are doing something for the poor? You hear verbalizations that the minimum wage is not enough to support one person, etc. So they raise it and take a bow, but it seemed good on the surface until we all see the cost of groceries go up. It reminds me of some Countries that have many poor and yet they tax food on a federal level as high as 12 or more percent. Who are they helping except the Feds tax money available.. I have seen it and this stuff still goes on, just to get the vote. Then they claim they did something for the poor and they did wrong for them, Earl