Altering Reality Through Economic Alchemy

Minimum wage increases DO cause unemployment both in the short and long-term.

An increase of $3.75 which just insanely took place in D.C. will automatically lead to layoffs and firings. If you can't figure out why then you probably need to pay closer attention to life.

Usually, because public officials know this, they pro rate it over a longer period. For example, a $3.75 spread over, say, five years so as to allow businesses to absorb costs, adjust their workforce and eventually change pricing that gets passed on to the consumer.

I know if I were forced to increase my wages by that amount, I'd be faced with three choices. Try and get capital (private investment or loan) to keep me going, lay off workers (which is hard given the regulations I must adhere to), increase my fees (which is very difficult in the environment Quebec has created both financially and psychologically) or simply close up. 

In the end it just drives the cost of everything up while eliminating jobs on the low end.

It's a slow-acting poison basically.

But hey, this foolishness gets the votes.

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Comments:

"The question is easy - do taxes on anything cause less of that thing?

The answer is yes in every case - because taxes on anything represent nonproductive use of money - it's a loss for both the consumer and the producer.

...going slightly further - same with drugs and such, as drug laws can be *thought of as big "tax" on the product as the product price increases directly proportional to the additional risk carried by the illegality of supply.

By *thought of "big "tax" I meant only for explanation purposes as the full analogy is weak - even though tax is theft, banning nonviolent, noncoercive behavior and enforcing that through the US's LEO & prison system is vastly more horrendous than normal taxation.
Even though in a perfect world both would be zero.

Reminds me of another prevalent myth these days - the belief that the perfect tax rate isn't zero.
I believe that used to be much more common knowledge....but of course that's when people agreed on things like, raising taxes on X, negatively affects it, but since we're too smart to believe in old wive's tales about people losing jobs to the Minimum Wage Monster™, we don't think that way anymore.

Because apparently, by shear belief, reality can be altered."

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"Lifestyle inflation is a bitch when it comes to this argument as well.

People ramp up their spending to match their paychecks and then perpetually bitch about how broke they are.

It drives me nuts when I hear nurses who make $40/hr themselves with husbands pulling down another $30/hr complain about how they're broke and aren't being paid enough.

I like to think these type of people are the reason why the US government is in such rough shape financially."

I see this in the flesh.

There's also the rise in comparing one's salary to one in a related field. For example, a person will say something to the effect "teachers make x-amount. I take care of kids too. Ergo, I should make as much as a teacher - or a nurse or whatever.'

Worse, there seems to also be a rise in people inflating their self-worth. Apparently, employment wages exists to match this distorted perception of reality. It matters not that a person willingly chose to live beyond their means (e.g. take on a mortgage they can't afford), what matters is that your job is expected to match your decisions - however irresponsible.

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"Increasing the minimum wage to a zillion bucks an hour is one way. But...

The best economic stimulus, per Nancy Pelosi, is unemployment benefits. I say we increase unemployment benefits to $100,000 a year, quit our jobs, and let the magic happen!"

The Democrat party of the United States and its left-wing comrades across North America are feeding right into this malaise.  The people who advocate for this don't own businesses or haven't a clue of what it's like to run one or business people turned politicians looking for votes for the majority of votes are with the portion of the population that doesn't understand the "unseen" impact of such thinking. Just my guess.