@2 wow, that must be why america never got out of the great depression.

oh wait, we did get out of it with high wage policies, full employment policies, and big govt. and it laid the foundation for decades of growth, too!

your point only suggest that we should BOTH have higher minimum wage AND increase the size of govt. to stimulate demand that's what actually worked to get us out of the depression.

the middle class and worker's min wage grew and grew and grew from the time of roosevelt to the time of reagan, doesn't that undermine you whole point rather dramatically?

The new deal fully happened in ww2 -- dramatically ending the depression. Right?

If not that, what ended it?

Yes, please leave.

ah yes, the restaurants will go out of business and there will be NO RESTAURANTS.

btw that pho shop could have 3 employees be family owned and they could be pulling in net profit of $180K a year. Or more. Or less. You just assume "small business" = small profit when no necessarily so.

large businesses can have no profit. or low profit. or low margins with a large percent of all costs being labor cost which is what you really are thinking of. a small buseinss can be a lawyer and one assistant, or a architect and two assistants, or a PT owner and two physical therapists paid $65K each with the owner hauling it in, sticking it to the insurance companies an dpulling in $200K a year. MANY small businesses don't pay the minimum wage or are paying one person a min wage and can EASILY AFFORD a 60% hike in the minimum wage of one person because the revenues could be $500K a year of which the costs are $300K of which the min wage labor cost was %18K. So a 60% hike in min wage can be a 2% hike in cost -- and business faces ever rising costs on all fronts at all times pretty much. Business is risky, that's why they sort of get to earn this thing called profits. Your pho shop could be profitable, or not, it could have high labor costs or not -- one suspects rent and COGS are most of the cost -- then taxes -- and the labor is held down because half the employees are actually family and are owners. Small business worries about rising labor costs. Its there biz to worry right? They also worry about rising rents, utilities, supplies, and taxes, and costs for IT somehow you spend more and more on it, right? but guess what the low wage workers are the smallest business of all and they haven't had a real raise in the minimum wage since 1968, while everything else rose sky high. so THEY are the small business we should worry about MOST. their labor is WORTH $15 an hour and paying below that is a starvation wage calculated to keep them on public assistance so we have more tax dollars going to food stamps and less to r and d, roads, education etc. Look at the whole picture not just an imaginary pho shop. and guess what, you're right, SOME small business will go out of business, just like imposing standards on educational colleges makes some not get accredited, standards for doctors makes some quacks not serve as doctors, standards for rental units means some are deemed not good enough to be sold in the marketplace. Without standards there is exploitation. Now since 1968 in America business and republican and passive democrats have let the min wage be cut about 30%. restoring that cut brings us to about $12. add in forty years of productivity growth even in low wage workers, better education, more capital associated with their jobs, and the rise to $15 is fully justified. and if you want phase it in. You end up with a workforce that looks more like the one in Switzerland and less like the one in Guatemala -- and yes it may be more expensive to get a café latte in a café but it will be cleaner, the server won't be starving her kids of trips to the doctor, she may be able to afford community college for her eldest kid, and that kid won't fucking be someone drugged out you trip over leaving the café, someone bringing down the whole economy as an overall cost. There is a basic cost of living which is the cost of running each asset to society known as a "worker" and we pay it one way or another with higher min wage or more food stamps and ER care and if we don't pay it we pay WAY more for the social dislocation and costs that result from low wage workers constantly being in crisis and unable to pay for food rent basic health care and maybe renting a flute to the kid stays in school and has purpose instead of being ground down oppressively and turning to drugs. Most costs in life are indirect. You choice is do you want a society more like Germany and Switzerland where various laws and policies result in higher wages for low wage workers, or freaking Mississippi or substandard neighborhoods in large us cities where you're afraid to park your audi? more turks are moving to Germany than germans moving to lower wage turkey did you ever wonder why? there's more sun in turkey and better seas to swim in, right? you can say collectivism sucks thinking you live in a microeconomics example in a econ 101 textbook but in reality you live in a macroeconomy, in a society, in collectivism whether you want to or not, this thing called a nation is a collective, the world is too, and having slumlord dwelling in you city affects you so you have minimum habitable standards, and for the same reason you need a min wage that's more of a living wage and not the equivalent of slummy housing with no utilities, holes in the roof and stairs falling down. It just doesn't work well for all. You are connected to poor people and saying collectivism sucks is a moronic and juvenile indeed vulgar form of bullying ignorance. you're in a collective called a society. it has secondary and tertiary costs. without standards there is exploitation so we set minimums in many fields of life -- parenting, schools, health, housing and yes the employment "market." the min wage is associated with better outcomes, so is raising it, it's been raised in the usa and states oh about 100 times and mainly the result is it worked and the economy grew overall. yes some people lose their jobs. most are better off, society is better off, stop whining and let's enact it. We cut it for forty years. Now let's raise it back and raise it some more for enhanced productivity, the low wage workers are our workers and they are our smallest businesses and they're being exploited by employers who pay subliving wages expecting the rest of us to pick up the tab via govt. services, health care, and costs of families in crisis and in disorder. your position amounts to saying no regulations in any field and that's totally moronic.