Maybe yes, maybe not.
The ramifications of increasing minimum wage would actually NEGATE the benefits if talking of economy as a whole! (Prices of good would increase for example). The purchasing power of minimum wage earners may not increase at all.
All artificially raising the minimum wage would cause a person to have less money because everything will just self-adjust up. And since taxes are not adjusted, the higher income will cause a person to be taxed at a higher income level.
The math doesn't support your contentions. Wages represent only a portion of the cost of a product and, as such, the price increase needed to cover the cost of higher wages will be a smaller percentage than the hike in wages.
For example: let's say that a product sells for $1. Of that $1, half (50 cents) covers wages, a quarter covers non-wage overhead (i.e. 25 cents), and the remaining quarter (25 cents) is profit (i.e. a 33% profit margin).
If wages rise by 50% to 75 cents, then the total price would only have to be raised to $1.25 to cover it. The worker earns 50% more and pays 25% more, leaving money in their pocket.
That scenario leaves the owner with the same gross profit (25 cents), but a lower profit margin (25%). If they wanted to maintain the same profit margin, they'd raise prices to $1.33. In that case, the worker makes 50% more, while paying 33% more - they still come out ahead.
Learning more skills and getting a raise without changing the price of entry level positions (minimum) will allow you to have more real money to spend, even with more taxes.
No. I don't think people should gain skills and work their way out of minimum wage jobs. My daughter's first job at 16 was greater than minimum wage because she had a marketable unique skill. My son started at minimum wage in high school but was allowed to earn incentives so made above minimum wage in effect since he was willing to put in the extra effort.
This ignores the fact that many jobs - particularly unskilled jobs - are engineered to remove the sort of responsibility, decision-making, and other opportunities to add value that would bring these extra wages.
It also ignores the fact that in many places that employ a lot of unskilled labor, there are few opportunities to rise up and management is often poor at training up new leaders.
Minimum wage jobs are supposed to be entry level jobs.
Not when they were initially conceived, they weren't. FDR explicitly said they ought to be "living wage" jobs.
My concern is that boosting the minimum wage could lead to inflation. Then your money won't buy as much stuff.
We'd be better off. Low wages have basically lined the pockets of the upper middle class like me at the expense of the lower classes like my parents.
Other countries like Germany or Sweden have no minimum wage and have high standards of living. It seems to me the minimum wage is an inellegant tool to deal with complex social problems.
European countries have very strong labor unions that more-or-less negate the need for minimum wage laws. If you want to let unions take over everything in lieu of having a minimum wage law, well... you might find some friends on the left.
Suppose the government told you how much you had to pay for your daughter's piano lessons?
NO third party has the right to interfere with the free trade of two free parties.
You're just wrong. The constitution gives congress the right to interfere in free trade. Regardless, the labor market is far from perfectly efficient - there are loads of distortions in the labor market that require government intervention to fix so we don't quickly slide into a dystopian oligopoly.
