Raise the minimum wage.

"First off I would like to say that I never said that the farmer would raise the prices of other produce. I said they would raise prices for all their other customers. Meaning when they raise the price of beef for McDonald's they will raise it for the grocery store they sell it to." My point was the farmer, if we are talking about a single farmer here, would probably have only McDonald's as its employer, because that particular restaurant would need a lot of food to feed all of its customers. "And, OK, McDonalds may get it's food from factories but the factories don't make the beef itself. Somewhere down the line there has to be a farmer. So I believe my argument about these price raises (aka inflation) still stands." It's rather optimistic to say those farmers have any say in their salaries. Large corporations force farmers into bankruptcy, causing said farmer to depend entirely on the corporation. If a farmer threatened to quit unless his pay was raised, he would be immediately laid off and replaced with someone less standoffish. "This is an impressive number... until you realize the vast majority of these people are not on the minimum wage. Only about 1.5 million people in the US made the minimum wage last year. (2) I believe this argument by Pro is irrelevant and should not be here." Believe what you wish, but you neglected to take into account the millions of jobs that pay just above minimum wage. While only one and a half million people might have minimum wage jobs (and that's not exactly a small number) one in four private sector jobs pay less than $10.00 (1). If the minimum wage were to be raised to $10.00, all employers paying their workers less than $10.00 would have to increase the salaries. "The article you as a source for this does not explain how they got this info. They very likely may have miscalculated or forgot certain factors. Another way to think about it is this: if what you said it true, why don't we see the impact?" A more credible source (2) says it was calculated in a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which should be sufficient ethos for you. And while you might not "see" the impact, if you go to any impoverished neighborhood in any city you'd definitely see it, and moreover the people who are residents there live it. You'll often find those who have little money are systematically ignored since we live in a society which equates money to power, so with no money comes no power. The impact is there--you'll be reminded that 45 million people live in abject poverty in the US. "'It is a logical assumption that this wealth inequality produces crime...' There is absolutely no proof for this. When was the last time you heard about somebody saying 'I committed that crime because I'm on minimum wage and poor.'" There is lots of proof of this. People have written whole books on this (such as Richard G. Wilkinson's "Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality" and it's sequel, "The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier") and you can find several articles on it (https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk... and http://politicalviolenceataglance.org... and many more). It's an observable and provable phenomena. Please research before making such assumptions. "Which brings up something interesting. It appears you are assuming people on minimum wage are poor. This is simply not true. The ones that are are the ones that didn't make good financial decisions. 'I can't raise a family off minimum wage.' That's not what minimum wage is for. It's a launching pad for individuals." It's not logical to say that people who make the minimum wage and are in poverty are only in such an economic position because of poor choices. Some people don't have the choice to have a well-paying job because there simply aren't opportunities--you can take a look at unemployment rates to check that fact. Some people can't afford to go to college, but this shouldn't even be important because we shouldn't live in a society where you have to have received higher education to be able to feed yourself. The intent of the minimum wage might not be to provide for the whole family, but that's what's happening now, and we need to accommodate for that. "Why do women make minimum wage? Because they choose to. In a family, the father brings in most of the money. If the mother works at all it's not a lot because she wants to spend time with her kids." If this is true, why is the labor force comprised of 47% women (3)? And of the employed women, then why do 73% worked full-time jobs? Though men are still perceived as the main breadwinners of the family, and that holds a certain degree of truth, it is becoming more and more necessary for a woman to take a job in order to support her husband and children since there is simply not enough money to go around. And if a working woman took a minimum wage job because she wanted to spend more time with her kids, I would imagine taking a low-paying job with an eight-hour workday would not be the brightest idea. You act as if minimum wage work is effortless or easy. "Welfare is a messed up system. Many people of welfare don't even work." Oh? Do you have a source for that? Better yet, are you remembering that pesky 6% unemployment rate (4)? "And as stated above the poor people on minimum wage are in that mess because of their own bad decisions. So these billions of dollars are mostly going to lazy people, or people who thought they could take on several expenses while still on minimum wage." I usually don't use ad hominem, but that is such a pretentious thing to suggest! Picture this: A hypothetical family comes as immigrants to this country. As a result, they can't get well-paying jobs, so their children can't get an education. Those children go on to have low-paying jobs of their own since they don't have college degrees, and their kids suffer the same fate as they did, and so on and so on. People don't start as clean slates. Every time a child is born, they carry the baggage of the choices of their predecessors, and often a lack of economic mobility is included in this. These billions of dollars are going to people who need it. Sources: (1) http://thinkprogress.org... (2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com... (3) http://www.dol.gov... (4) http://data.bls.gov...