"The government has one benefit; it can benefit by paying off debt with deflated dollars."

Yes. The dragon (inflation) raises its ugly head. I would also note that government can only do this with fiat currency - which is why they first agitate for such and now for all-digital currency.

Excellent analysis.

It is instructive to place graphs of the value of the dollar side by side with the minimum wage. The quest for an increase in the minimum wage and the deliberate devaluation of the dollar can be seen clearly. Our government has a long history of deficit spending so reducing the value of the dollar is a good strategy. If you can borrow money today and pay it back tomorrow with cheaper dollars it is the equivalent of a discount on the loan. It is also interesting to look at dollar decline and the surge in the stock market. Are stocks really worth that much more or does it just take more deflated dollars to buy the same value?

Hello blarman,
Many employers will go out of business, raise the prices, replace workers with robots, or worse, raise prices until they replace the workers with robots and once replaced, maintain the price increases. Neither the entry level worker nor the consumer will benefit. Inflation will adversely affect all. The government has one benefit; it can benefit by paying off debt with deflated dollars. Some would call that a perverse incentive... Unfortunately consumers always foot the bill. http://kahlerfinancial.com/financial-...
Respectfully,
O.A.

Yes. It's called inflation. That's why the mere existence of a minimum wage introduces an inflation spiral. The only way to stop the spiral is to eliminate the minimum wage.

Milton Friedman presents this very question and its debunk here: https://youtu.be/ca8Z__o52sk

Why not just triple ALL wages so everyone has more money !!! Maybe Sanders will propose this at some point.

The next thing they will do is tax robots so they continue to be more expensive than humans. Crazy.

I stopped going to the local supermarkets and have switched to the mexican markets (El Super and Food for Less here in Vegas), and Walmart Neighborhood Markets. Most prepackaged foods are made by robots anyway, but just stocked on the shelves by humans. I would be willing to order online and have robots assemble my order for such things.

I dont fly that much, so the total amount I would spend in airports isnt very much.

I would rather order from a robot anyway, so bring em on. I dont know why we dont have robot order takers anyway. Must be that workers are still cheaper than the robots at the current minimum wage. I hope the line is crossed so we get rid of inefficient order takers who cant even listen when I order.

Alberta is raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour iin the very near future. Liberty under attack. No one forces people to work for less, yet the government is forcing (essentially at the end of a gun) businesses to pay more. Of course it is nice to make more, but such a mandate goes against everythin Ayn Rand stood for. A job for ten dollars an hour and keeping a roof over my head is better than being laid off and becoming homeless because the business can not afford to pay me fifteen dollars per hour.

$15 an hour for entry level fast food workers would ripple through the economy raising ALL wages below about $25 by an equivalent amount to the raise in minimum wage. Everything would become more expensive, and I, for one, would just more quickly adopt a more minimalist approach to life. What you dont spend, you dont HAVE to make and pay taxes on.

I'm sure my wife would go for that as well. Would leave her more time to read and chat with her friends. ;)

I want low cost automation food prep at home, thanks. Gives me more time to chat with blarman and CBJ in the Gulch ;^)

Automation is definitely going to come into play. I've already seen releases that Wendy's is going to pilot a new automated order-entry system and I think McDonald's wasn't too far behind.

The cycle may be interrupted this time by your friendly neighborhood robot.

An excellent observation. What also gets added in there is that this just gets rolled into inflation eventually. And that begins the cycle all over again.

You may not even escape if you make your own sandwiches instead of buying bad fast food, since labor costs at grocery stores will also go up.
It has always been a bad idea and another stupid encroachment of government into free markets.

Precisely.

Somewhat resembles fast food prices inside airports. Once some jurisdictions have a $15 minimum wage in place, we can actually compare their fast food prices and employment with jurisdictions that don't.