Why a $15 minimum wage would hurt employees | TheHill

I have been harping on this for years. Here, here and here.

Not only does this article make the most valid point, but proponents of a national $15.00 minimum wage ignore the great differences in income and cost of living in regions of the Country and the affect applying the same minimum of $15.00 in NYC and Arkansas would have on lower cost areas.

And yet, the Wall Street Journal editors, as well as many other opponents of a minimum wage increase, are still ignoring another enormous factor – the most enormous factor – that would even further support their position: The effect of a minimum wage increase on all wages across the board. “I’m paying guys on the factory floor well above the minimum wage,” one of my clients, the owner of a 100-person manufacturing firm located in Pennsylvania, told me. “But if the minimum wage goes up, I’m going to be forced to raise everyone else’s wage too and I can’t afford to do that.” Why is that? It’s simple.

A typical factory floor worker at my client’s firm makes a minimum $15 an hour plus benefits. That wage is more than twice the national (and my state’s) minimum wage. But if the national wage goes up to $15 an hour, what’s he going to say? You know what he’s going to say. He’s going to say “$15 an hour? I’ve been working here three years and now I’m being paid an entry level wage? I deserve a raise too!”

Source: Why a $15 minimum wage would hurt employees | TheHill