I had an extremely liberal economics professor in college who knew and even preached that a minimum wage hurts young and low-skill workers.

I did remodels for McDonalds and other fast foods and Starbucks and i can tell you they are installing self serve machines so good bye entry jobs

15$/hour means you should at least give me what i ordered

Nice to see that even Jedis are aware of America's economics policies and minimum wage history.

15 an hour? Good bye unskilled human labor hello robot labor.

I work for a friend of mine who owns a (very) small business. A $15 minimum wage would absolutely crush us. Besides, the shit we do there is not worth anywhere near 15/hour.

I love how they call it unskilled jobs. Because they really are. Fast food jobs are ment for kids with no skills. Not 40 year old's supporting a family. Lol

I currently make $16/hr and minimum wage here is a little bit over 8 i think. Honestly if minimum wage gets to 15/hr or higher I'm going to just quit my insanely stressful job and get a job at McDonald's. Yeah I'd much rather fry burgers and smoke weed with no random drug tests lol

What about the elephant in the room, the whole "unskilled workers" aspect. Why are so many people unskilled? The public education system has failed them (more the like state indoctrination system).

After this minimum wage increase, I'm curious to see if they will even have a job. After all, businesses aren't required to keep one employed. Or stay themselves in business.

3 years later, I spent the last two months wondering how to feed myself and feeling guilty for bumming food, only to be relieved for the $12 an hour job. In fact I pretty much begged for it. The minimum wage is way way off scale... I work hard, but I've also had jobs at the same price point that were easy. The system is broken, because for the past year, I have been living in a car and welfare keeps saying that I don't need help. I nearly starved for the beginning of this year. Thanks California

McDonald's handled the $15 min wage.Replaced workers with kosiks.Stores with self check outs ect.Its not working.

Seattle raised the minimum wage to $15/hr and has slowly watched as several restaurants and small businesses have started to shut down. No restaurant is going to have an easy time paying waiters/waitresses $15/hr and manage to stay open.

Its all a bunch of bull. In Miami, almost no one works for the Federal Min - why? It isn’t worth it. Most entry-level jobs around here are ~$10/hr, because no one will do them for less. That is exactly what competition is for, in this case, competition for labor.

I foresee Mom & Pop shops only having one or two employees, the owners will take up any slack, instead of hiring more work.

Unskilled labor: Sir, I need a job. Small business: Sorry, I can't afford to hire you. Unskilled labor: I am willing to work for less than $15 minimum wage. Small business: Sorry, the government won't let me to hire you less than minimum wage. Unskilled labor and Small business: Let's vote the suckers out!

A point that was not made here is that support for a higher minimum wage comes from Public Sector Unions. This is because the base pay for almost all PSU contracts is based on a percentage of the Minimum Wage, raising the minimum gives Union Members a raise as well. Ironically, there are now Unions in California that lobbied for the higher Minimum wage, who are now lobbying to be exempt from it.

The minimum wage and fast food jobs were never meant to be lived on. We don't need a higher minimum wage . We need a totally different class of jobs and the skills and education to do them!

The states that raised the minimum wage have the most expensive living expenses. Wonder why🤔

So in Massachusetts they are talking about raise the Minimum wage from 11$ - 15$an hour. It’s was at 9.25 just 3 years ago. I’ve been with the same company since minimum wage was $7.25 through hard work and going from part time to full time I have climbed from $7.25 - $17.50 and hour it’s taking me close to 9yrs to get there. Why should some snot nose part time 15yrold ( like I was when I started ) be making $15 an hour? A measly $2.50 an hour less then me ? Why should my value change? 2 raises ago my work decided I was valued at $7.50 more than the minimum wage they could pay me. Now I’ll only be valued at $2.50 more than the minimum.... why is my value lessened? It’s not like I’ll get a cost of living raise that is equal to the rise in minimum wage. They are already talking about cutting are time and a half for working Sunday So we will get cut from 6 days to 5... So not only will I not get the equal raise that a 15yr old will get.. I’ll actually see my paycheck get smaller because of it. If you can’t survive off a minimum wage job, than you shouldn’t work a minimum wage job. They aren’t meant to survive off of, they are meant for Students, Young people w/little responsibility, women looking to work “mothers hours”, retirees looking to stay busy. It is not meant to feed a family or pay rent w/no roommates or pay a mortgage. I dont understand this idea that a part time job at McDonalds , Starbucks or a grocery store should be paying a wage for an adult or family to survive on. That’s not how it works and it never has

I have a summer home in a coastal community in Southern California. Almost every national fast food chain restaurant is gone. I asked the manager of the last McDonald's why they were closing. She said they cannot afford to pay the minimum wage without raising the prices on their menu. However the McDonald's corporate offices will not allow a franchisee to change the menu prices. The minimum wage is 15.00 to start. However, the employer has to give the worker a raise every six months until he/she reaches 18.00 an hour. An employee cannot be laid off without just cause.

In my lifetime I've seen the minimum wage increase several times and EVERYTIME it lead to layoffs, staffing changes, cost increases and the eventual market adaptation with more people out of work. And yet we still have these morons in office pretending it's somehow going to be different this time. This tme it's going to work and everyone will be better off. And then it doesn't!

For those confused let me explain a unskilled/low skill worker. If your training can be condensed and last year's on end with only 1 hour, your job takes no skill. You can't learn how to be a master welder in 1 hour but you can with taking things off of a pallet and put it on a shelf. When people say get a trade or learn a skill stop thinking with your victim mentality and assume they mean a doctor. If it takes months or years to learn something it's a skill. Invest your time into that and it will pay off in the end. You will get paid what you are worth in skills. Lower wage, lower skill. Very basic.

New McDonalds menu replacing dollar menu with five dollar menu. And your food will still be wrong.

I am going submit a proposal to congress to lower the price of everything to my liking if people think government can artificially set a minimum wage without some sort of consequence.

You know who I feel sorry for, the guy that already makes $15 an hour. He now has to look over and see someone with less skill or less experience get paid the same.

Raising the minimum wage, so living with parents, potheads, can buy more weed.

I know this video is dated, just going to offer an observation: When minimum wage goes up, within 6 months the cost of all goods and services directly connected to the minimum wage goes up in price. This also reduces the buying power for all middle class people, in essence pushing them towards the poverty line. The one thing it does do, increases tax revenue for state and federal governments. This last point, coupled with the close ties unions have with the left, explains, at least in part, why there is always a push to increase minimum wage. if you want more money, work more or develop a better skill set, gain more knowledge in your chosen profession.

Minimum wage mentality: I want to see people who can't make $15 starving to death.

Fantastic stuff. The minimum wage is one of the most destructive things that government interference causes in the economy.

When the government says I'm here to help, run away very fast

Of course they want a higher minimum wage....that way the employees make more, and the state takes more in taxes. The only way the state can fill their depleted public employee pension funds.

Minimum wage laws violate private property rights. It is a contract between a buyer, the employer, and the seller, the worker. The state has no moral right to intercede in a private contract, unless fraud has been committed. A question for those who support minimum wage laws: Do you believe the state should have a right to force a person who hires s babysitter to pay a higher wage than they originally agreed upon?

$15 Minimum wage is rent control on the worker.

Minimum wage is slowly catching up to my educated wage..which makes me uncomfortable....My wage is stagnant, others just keep rising, being forced to pay or close their doors...sad.

The real problem is rent control. Rent goes up when wags go up. The market controls prices but this is a hamsters wheel. The higher the wages the more rent can be charged. Increasing minimum wage is on a temp fix that lasts maybe 6 months to a year. By this time next year, we’ll be right back at square one.

$15 is only part of it. As an employer there is all the extra cost in taxes Medicare medicaid so your talking $17? extra cost. When you talk about copper going up and replacing it with a cheaper metal no one says anything. But if you talk about automation because your labor cost are high you get beat up. I don't think people know that the state is not doing anyone favors running the cost of everything up.

As a libertarian, I'm all for minimum wage! The minimum wage should be set on an individual basis by each employer based upon employee negotiations, influenced by market forces like competition, supply and demand, etc. In other words, let free market forces determine the unique minimum wage for each and every business. But one-size-fits-all minimum wage proclamations set from on high will destroy opportunities that would otherwise exist - opportunities the economy will never see, but nevertheless feel.

If you are in favor of a legal hourly minimum wage of $15 you are arguing that a person loses his right to be employed if his skills are not at a level where he can generate at least an equal amount in production for an employer.

As a Senior on SS, those increased costs cut my income spending as I don't get a 100% increase in SS. HELP

How come no one ever talks about when you raise minimum wage you also must raise all other wages. Everyone who makes more than the minimum will need a boost in pay as well.

The problem with low skills jobs having a 15 dollar minimum wage is that one job that requires just a little more skill is going to ask for more. The cook in a restaurant is going to ask for 17-18 in a fast food restaurant. The secretary is going to ask for more and then it gets the ball rolling. To cover this, employers have to layoff employees, raise prices, which could lead to people buying less or none at all. Also most of these jobs are a stepping stone to help you wanting to improve your life; not to stay there forever. A good example I tell my friends was that when I was in elementary in the early and mid 1990s we didn't have a computer in my house. But my public school when I was in the 5th grade loan us a computer for 4-6 months. We were able to surf the web and there were educational programs in them for math and reading. I prefer math lol. After returning the computer I really wish I had one at home. After a couple of years my parents were able to buy one and soon after while working at a supermarket I was able to save enough to buy a laptop. If you give everyone everything they want without having to work for it then why even bother working. If one day governments decide to give low skills workers health insurance, food, shelter, free higher education, etc. Then why would someone need to work hard, those who have loans to become doctors or lawyers are going to decide its not worth it and just have the government take care of them. You will have a breakdown in the social order. Back in 2004 NYC lower the starting pay for NYC police officers to 25100, just 100 dollars above what it would needed so they wouldn't qualify for government assistant. At that time the minimum wage was 7.50 , after a police officer was done paying union dues, health insurance, taxes, uniform upkeep, they were making the same as a McDonald worker. Do you actually think people with skills or an education were signing up to become police officers? No, many of those hired had spotty records or something in their application that would have disqualify them, many would have rather instead work for McDonald where they wouldn't have to risk their life. I saw on the news of a female who had 4 kids and with the 1200 she made monthly she couldn't pay the rent and buy food for her children. She ended up getting in trouble because she was getting food stamps. You will also cause businesses to invest in new technology that will replace the workers. I've seen in Mcdonald automated tellers, if you go to carwash business they only have 4 workers to run the place instead of 10-12 they used to have before.

Don't get mad when a robot takes the your's and 5 other coworker's jobs

Maybe on weekends, evenings, and during the summer break there are a lot of high school students working in fast food. The majority of the employees in this day and age are adults taking care of themselves and possibly a family. There is nothing easy or stress free about the fast food industry. It was my first job and the hardest job I'll ever love. With the motivation to succeed, you can advance and earn a decent salary. The particular restaurant/franchise had an actual university. It's been over 20 years since I worked there so I don't know if that still exists. That was my first job in high school. I was young and didn't know if that was a place I wanted to make a career of. I've been in my career for 23 years now and I don't regret making the change, but there are things I learned in that first fast food job that I still apply to my internal and external interactions. Those aren't petty little jobs, for teens and unskilled workers. People need to stop taking that attitude towards something they don't understand. What it costs to make the average item on those menus combined with a $15 minimum wage will not hurt these companies' bottom lines - that's just greed. When you underpay these workers, many of whom are adults/head of household, you end up paying for it as a taxpayer because they usually qualify for most government subsidies especially if they have children. That's really why they keep the wages low and that includes those big box stores. They make record profits yet refuse to pay a fair wage and/or offer benefits. So you, the taxpayer, end up covering the costs these companies are more than capable of covering AND they'll still turn healthy profits.

Higher wages, higher taxes collected. Including social security tax. The gain at $15 per hour? Subtract 7.36% for state & federal taxes, then 7.65% per hour for social security & medicare in California. On 80 hours of work you get $992 every two weeks. Food costs, transportation & rent? Got kids? (Ouch). Well, you may still need to work in the evenings if you have a lifestyle that requires you have more cash in your pocket. But at least you can get a Federal tax refund...maybe.

This is one of the best discussions of the minimum wage I have seen. Paul Krugman could learn basic economics from this video if he was willing to listen.

I worked at McDonald's in NY for years with the raise, I saw first hand when they cut over time our employees in half over several years and raised put prices between a quarter to double what they were. I saw a small fry go from $1.09 to $2.13 after tax, I saw being able to feed 2 people meals for $10 to feeding them for $18. On top of that I'd get a lot of negative people coming at me like I changed the wage and prices of food angry for it being so expensive and on top of them I'd run around between bagging for second window and taking customers orders on counter as well as making fries, making drinks, ice cream, shakes etc. It got to be too much for a teen starting out while in hs still as her first job only. It got to be too much labor for an older lady who just wanted to work part time to get out of the house on retirement. They treat it now like I actual job but it was only ever meant to be a starting out job.

We won't be able to afford much when this $15 happens to Minneapolis. We will bus out to the suburbs to eat and shop. If the $15 goes state wide, we will have to use food shelves and churches for food and clothes. Definitely no more restaurants!

hard work does not equal high pay-- it's a given and is expected. a skill that makes you valuable and difficult to replace makes a business (which by definition are to maximum profit) willing to pay you a living rage. skill=higher pay hard work=expected on all jobs. you may work hard at a motel I'm not arguing that. you may be a good employee but you are not skilled in the sense that you can be replaced fairly easily with anybody. don't be ashamed of any job, find a place you can work up, work hard and fight for better jobs, not better pay on a low paying job.

This makes me nervous - as a parent of a young adult with a disability - having an opportunity to get any skills at a low wage has been difficult at the current minimum wage - I can only imagine how bad it gets if my state ups the minimum wage.

There's no point in talking about the minimum wage without mentioning how it compares to the Economy and price of Housing and goods

Only the large companies can afford to replace employees with automation, so now an upstart restaurant will have no chance.

I started at minimum wage cleaning toilets and in only 6 short months I was promoted to cleaning urinals which just goes to show you should never give up on your dreams.

The day a person begins to become an adult is the day they leave their parents home.

I started working for $4.25. I got pay increases for my experience and work ethic. Then minimum would go up and prices would go up and I would be back a minimum. Right where I started. If we raise the minimum high enough everyone will be poor except the people that make money from capital

The Government fires researchers who come up with factual results.

I think we need to look at starting apprenticeship programs again. We have a huge need for tradesmen, and I see this system as a good way to get people in the industry

Go to university and get a STEM degree.

In Canada we went to near $15/hr minimum wage and it was a disaster.The other workers who had more responsibility and made $17, or $20 hr and more all demanded the same increase.To be fair they got the increase as well.This was an overnight 30% increase in our labor costs. We could only put our prices up marginally to compensate to stay competitive. Our accountant said our profit line fell to single digits which was not enough to pay the mortgage and reinvest profits back into the business. We were forced to cut jobs and look at automation. We raised our prices slightly and customers went crazy. Our sales dropped so no business no jobs. All the while we went 3 months where every day someone did not show up to work. I guess these hard working people don't need money? Minimum wage was never intended to be life supporting, it was for low skilled and inexperienced young people to learn skills and responsibilities. Anyway we decided to sell our business and get out. This was the final straw.I"M FREE.

$15 an hour minimum wage can't even buy you a house in New York

I would even PAY to be hired in some companies, just for the sake of experience and getting some business contacts.

I am currently writing a study that finds increasing the minimum wage decreases unemployment. My source is my ass. On a side note, I am going to go from making double minimum wage to a dollar more than minimum wage in 3 years. I have never worked this close to the minimum wage before.

I live in the south , we are a little backwoods here. EMT's make around $15 an hour, LPN's not much more, and these people " deserve" $15 who can't even figure out how to build a cheeseburger?????

The more you study economics, the more you realize that the models we use to understanding the markets are far too simplified for any of us to actually know what the effect of something is going to be. For example, the series of studies from 2015 to 2019 on the effects of the $15 minimum wage started showing that there were declines in both employment and hours worked, which meant that people made less money as a result of the wage increase in 2015; however, in 2017-18 study found that the results had become neutral or positive on both employment and income, and in the most recent 2019, they found that the effect had become positive, as people were working more hours on the new wage and had a resulting increase in employment, spending power, and demand in the restaurant industry. The counter-argument to these latest results was that Seattle was "unique", that it was booming before the wage hike and simply continued to do so, and that these results couldn't be replicated in other parts of the US. Believe it or not, this counter-argument is the reasonable answer, because as I've mentioned before, we actually have no idea why anything results in anything else. We have no idea why it worked in Seattle because the market is too complex for any human, or even any group of humans, to accurately predict what is going to happen. We measure the results and throw a theory at the wall and hope that it's accurate in this context, but chances are, it isn't. All the preconceived notions that we have are bullshit, like this idea that raising the minimum wage will mean that all our jobs will be automated. Let me ask you something, would you prefer to eat at a restaurant where you are served by a robot, or would you prefer to be taken care of by an attractive, young, waitress? The market adjusts to human demand, and humans are social creatures. The robots will just have their place in the marketplace just like humans will. Also, this idea that lowering wages will mean that more unskilled workers will have jobs is not necessarily true. All we really know is that it was true in the past, which doesn't necessarily mean it will be true tomorrow. If the competitive advantage of a specific company was customer service, you would only hire the best people you can, which would mean you would have to pay them as much as possible. No company could pay workers soo little that it would diminish their advantage if they hoped to stay in business. The companies that would hire the cheapest person are the ones that have low prices as their only advantage, and there is nothing stopping McDonald's from replacing them with Kiosks. The Kiosks are cheaper than paying someone $7 today, and they get cheaper every year. The race to the bottom when competing with tech is a short-term game, and the unskilled worker always loses. We don't even know that the laws of supply and demand are accurate because various goods and services have contradicted it in the past. Inelastic and sticky goods are a thing, and we don't know what future products or services will fall into these categories. Be wary of anyone that tells you that they know what the results of a policy will be, because context matters, and no one can take into account all of the confounding variables. All we can really do is try new things when what we are currently doing isn't working in the hopes that it will lead to a better outcome.

Went to Target yesterday. Kids are getting $15 an hour to wipe down shopping cart handles with sanitizer.

the price of EVERYTHING will go up dramatically

The issue is the greed of the owners not the workers who want to be paid fairly. Employees are more important than employers. They make up way more of our country than the employers do.

Everyone is so happy to call minimum wage workers worthless. That fast food cook/server? You demand the service they provide and yet deny that they deserve a wage they can live on. If you think that everyone working min wage is so worthless, maybe you should consider how much you use our service. A good amount of the things we deal with, primarily dealing with the public, make us say "They don't pay me enough to deal with this". Min wage isn't always about cooking fast food or serving tables. Because if one thing goes wrong too many people are happy to scream in our faces, and they sure as hell don't pay me enough to deal with that abuse with a smile. tldr: Stop using and creating a demand for a service if you don't think people deserve a liveable wage.

Is there breakfast in bed with this $15.00?

So this is what happened to Luke Skywalker after he disappeared at the end of The Last Jedi. I thought he’d become one with the Force, but no, he took up a position as an Economics Professor!

Seattle did it and the businesses said that suddenly their own employees could afford to buy the food they were selling. Giving money to people who need to spend it immediately is not taking that money out of the economy.

I think the way to combat low wages would be to have tax penalties on companies to hire new employees. It would incentivize employers to keep workers around by either paying more or improving the Working conditions. We should make employers want to keep low skill workers happy so they stick around and they don't get hit with a hiring tax from high turnover.

$15 minimum wage everythings price will go up rent too end up low wage will pay more

The data goes back to the 60s and it always cost. higher prices and fewer jobs. I'm an economist too.

There should be no minimum wage .

So with a 15 dollar an hour minimum wage will put half the workers sitting at home making nothing

I ended up homeless 2 years ago, and here I am, still in my car, till I am caught for bad tags. Yeah, this move really hurt people like me.

I have tried to negotiate with my emploerers but they refused! They feard getting in trouble with the state.

I learned electronics on the job. I can solder, I can use a pencil. I can demand a living wage. I will pass my skills onto anyone willing to learn.

Zero-Sum. Upper middle class and higher are pissing in their pants.

Look what happened to Detroit when the Auto industry went on strike machines came in people went out. And that wasn't really that long ago. How quick we are to forget.

Nick. great questions, great answers.

Small restaurants and cafes aren't installing kiosks They are just closing their doors...

The prices at MacDonald s now is like paying for a steak dinner

Mark Hamill is that you?

The more money the bottom man makes , the higher everything is going to go up but not because of the wage going up but because companies want that money from you and will raise price. Once people start getting better off with money , the 1st thing that goes up is every day goods and utilities .

Raising the minimum wage without freezing prices first is plain stupid. Companies will just raise all there prices and cry for government bail outs and tax right offs.

So what happens when you work minimum wage job to gain experience for a higher paying position but your boss keeps stringing you along with promises of more training.

The reality is that when you evaluate the minimum wage against the Cost of Living Index the minimum wage should be $23.19 an hour.

Easy fix, we'll just print more money!

Working for lower pay isn't a "bargaining chip" -- it's an act of desperation. The $15/hr minimum wage only seems high because wages have been stagnant for two decades. Time to pay the piper.

Just a few quick thoughts... 1) If small start ups have to pay this, it will limit entrepreneurs from entering business. This is a big deal since about 80% of start ups fail in this country anyway. 2) Depending on the type of business, the total cost of paying $15/hr. is from $22/hr. to $32/hr. 3) Those who have never been in business or attempted have no idea what an owner goes through... I know a man who slept in his small office for months and ate popcorn for dinner... and people resented his success. How about those sleepless night trying to figure out how to pay your bills and cover payroll? I'm just saying that most people have no idea what it takes to start a business... the level of commitment.

For $15/hour employers should be able to demand a bachelor's degree from all of their entry level employees.

Reason is Awesome. Great guest.

The tech companies will use that higher wage to justifying automating even the cheapest of jobs. They’re not gonna lose 1/2 the jobs, they’re gonna lose them all.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Could there be more industries open and more jobs created before raising the minimum wage so it balances out?

I'm fortunate enough to work for a company that doesn't pay minimum wage for the entry level position. You shouldn't just be handed $15 an hour. That kind of money should be earned. My company is big about becoming the best you can be by slowly moving up the ladder of positions. $15 an hour will allow people to settle for less than their best.

Problem is that you cant apply capitalism and socialism principles in the same time. As I understand historically "low wage" jobs was mostly just for teenagers (first job, not permanent).

The original study was done before there were; self order kiosks and self checkout machines. So the main grocery stores in my town both have self checkout machines.

Recent holiday (vacation) in the US. My meal never arrived because the waitress forgot to order it. It shows when the job went to the lowest bidder. At least we don't have that problem at Burger King where you do the ordering yourself.