When you have conflicting experts, like economists, on subjects like minimum wage one either should concede that he is incapable of determining who is right and therefore hold no opinion. The other approach might be to apply common sense to commons sense things that you know. Let me try that on minimum wages - and let me know if any of the simple statements I made in applying common sense are wrong in your opinion.

If wages are increased, all else being equal, all those engaged in profit making business will do one of the following, or a combination of the following:
- if the job is "portable" move it to a location where the wage has not been increased and therefore became more competitive, and/or;
- look to somehow automate the work, and the more expensive the work, all else being equal, the more cost justifiable capital investment would be, and/or;
- increase the price of the product/service that the work produces, and as happens when a product or service becomes more expensive, all else being equal, the demand for it will decrease.

Each of those outcomes all lead to a decrease in the jobs.

Further, all else being equal the wages one earns in a market based economy is largely driven by the demand for the work and the supply of the workers seeking it. For those jobs at or near minimum wage, those with low sk**ls and education are the ones most likely to be working on them.

If we increase the supply of low sk**led people by importing them in large numbers, legally or not so much legal, we suppress the wage scale for them. Further, if we allow our schools to, for wh**ever reason, generate many more non-sk**led and uneducated people entering the workforce, we further suppress the wage scale. If one doubts that we're doing that in our educations system, one needs but look at our urban schools, both the graduation rates and the achievement rates of those that graduate.

So, by making it more expensive to employ people - and there are many programs in addition to minimum wage that does that - Obamacare but one of the more recent - thereby decreasing the number of low sk**led jobs - and by making sure the number of unsk**led workers far exceeds the number of positions they can aspire to we make certain that the number of people who are not afforded the opportunity for economic independence.

I think it is clear that those who are most responsible for both ends of that spectrum are those who most expect to gain v**es for themselves

Many of those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage are also predisposed to defending the interests of corporate America even if the raise could save taxpayers 4.6 billion in spending on food stamps. A recent study conducted for the Center for American Progress highlights this important outcome.http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2014/03/05/85158/the-effects-of-minimum-wages-on-snap-enrollments-and-expenditures/ I am in favor of restoring the p***e of the low paid American worker and paying ten cents more for the burger.

All I can say is WOW. A person gets a raise in their minimum wage and can buy their child something to wear or something else to eat and that is "symbolic?"

What world do you live in? You must have a really easy life with no money worries at all. Life just floats down to you, right. It has to be rich parents. No one who has to survive with their own efforts would think a little more money is "symbolic." It may easily be the difference between medicine or nothing. Not that you would know.

Don't be a dope! I was raised by alcoholic/drug addict parents in a piss poor little town in SoCal and grew up in a school where elementary kids were bringing guns to school in the 70s! I've been a lifelong addict/alcoholic myself and have been to prison twice and jail more times than I can remember. I've lived in the street, or my car when I was lucky enough to have one and I've made every goddam mistake possible. At 47 I went to the Salvation Army and got sober. I took responsibility for myself and found work despite may age, lousy work history and record. I signed on with a seafood company in Alaska and for a year and a half I worked 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, outside in brutal weather with a day off here and there and a short break between fishing seasons for minimum wage! Now I have a desk job for the same company and deal with people from all walks of life from all over the world for a little more than minimum wage. I made just under 25 grand last year and worked plenty of overtime to get it. Not only am I not complaining, I'm grateful for the work I have and grateful that God gave me the gumption to go and get it when so many others pretend that they're victims and resign themselves to lives of perpetual failure, reliant on the government and the good graces of others to get by. So when I say "symbolic" I mean symbolic on the part of the manipulative bastards in Washington who saved this issue for a rainy day, not giving a tinker's damn about the poor folks you mentioned! I guess you didn't understand the part about the gain from the raising of the minimum wage being temporary! My experience has shown me that anyone can make a living if they go out and do it, and quit buying their own excuses.

All I can say is WOW. A person gets a raise in their minimum wage and can buy their child something to wear or something else to eat and that is "symbolic?"

What world do you live in? You must have a really easy life with no money worries at all. Life just floats down to you, right. It has to be rich parents. No one who has to survive with their own efforts would think a little more money is "symbolic." It may easily be the difference between medicine or nothing. Not that you would know.

Many of those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage are also predisposed to defending the interests of corporate America even if the raise could save taxpayers 4.6 billion in spending on food stamps. A recent study conducted for the Center for American Progress highlights this important outcome.http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2014/03/05/85158/the-effects-of-minimum-wages-on-snap-enrollments-and-expenditures/ I am in favor of restoring the p***e of the low paid American worker and paying ten cents more for the burger.