The minimum wage should not be raised to $15/hr for fast food workers

Re1: Labour Costs is Indeed 25-30% However, Pro Commits a Straw man Here Con claims I didn't contest his assertion that labour costs are 25-30%. I agree, I did not. Because objectively it is true, but what I did refute what that labour costs would increase as a result of an increase in MW. And if we have two similar companies (such as Walmart and Costco) and compare the two, we see that Costco saves a substantial amount of money due to a lack of turnover caused by paying more for labour. “Turnover is unusually low, at 17% overall and just 6% after one year’s employment. In contrast, turnover at Wal-Mart is 44% a year, close to the industry average...let’s assume that the total cost of replacing an hourly employee at Costco or Sam’s Club is only 60% of his or her annual salary. If a Costco employee quits, the cost of replacing him or her is therefore $21,216. If a Sam’s Club employee leaves, the cost is $12,617. At first glance, it may seem that the low-wage approach at Sam’s Club would result in lower turnover costs...total annual cost to Costco of employee churn is $244 million, whereas the total annual cost to Sam’s Club is $612 million” Thus, when MW increases, we notice turnover dropping and costs saved. Which means in the short run it might be more expensive, however in the long run these firms do save money as a result, which means MW decreases labour costs, not increase them. That was my whole point, to which my opponent obviously missed. [http://hbr.org...] The committee lead by Warren noted only an 8 cent increase was supported by the Card and Kruger studies which noted prices did increase but only cents at a time (about 5). Both the study and the increase we're debating about increased wages about 18% found the same numbers. They have been consistent even with my opponents own numbers (20% is reasonable as he stated) so claiming it's more like $1.25 is outrageous and unsupported. That's only if his math is correct, but it again does not account for all variables (such as staff workers buying into McDonald’s themselves when they have more disposable income due to MW increases) I agree prices will rise, I disagree with how much they will rise. [http://davidcard.berkeley.edu...] Re2: MW Increases Do Not Eliminate Jobs No error in his source because the model in which he examines MW call for what we would generally predict in the economy, which again is not what we precisely see. This is only using the supply and demand model, which generalizes the economy, it does not precisely predict what happens. Just because there is no error in his source does not mean the methodology isn't flawed, and indeed as I showed it was made to find that MW would cost jobs. When we drop this model and go strictly on the basis of observation, we find this is simply untrue. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] In fact, my opponent cites the Newmark papers, which are heavily flawed. Originally, my opponents study actually agreed with the results of Card and Kruger before contradicting them. Card and Krugers (C&K) later studies were not only verified by T.D Stanley in 2005, but Meta-analysis of MW studies also verify C&K's studies as showing more employment increases with studies on increases of MW, and that the studies my opponent cite had heavy publication bias, and failed to meet the statistical reliability needed to justify their model and results (to be reliable studies have to have a 0.05 rating in the T-stat, opponents of MW had a score of 2, meaning they're junk science). [http://en.wikipedia.org...] Finally, one thing my opponent completely dropped was that when MW increases, more people will look for a job. Let's not forget to be considered unemployed you must meet the following conditions: 1) you must be actively looking for a job and 2) you must not have a job. So someone like a stay-at-home mother is not considered “unemployed” because she is not actively looking. Whereas someone fired and looking for work is considered. So, if labour force participation increases with increases in MW, then it's entirely possible under my opponents model to show increases of unemployed, yet MW increases still create more jobs; it's just that more people are encouraged to actively look for a job as a result, which is why his studies using supply and demand do not work, they cannot tell if it's more people entering the labour force or if firms are no longer hiring. [http://www.oecd.org...] Finally, my opponent claims that MW increase cannot stimulate the economy, this is nonsense, the poorest people in this country spend their money the most, if they have more disposable income and continue to spend they way they do, then increases of MW will in fact act like a stimulus for the economy. [http://www.ksl.com...] And no McDonald's will not automate everything even though MW increases because in the short run, those investments in tech are too costly, whereas people have the distinct advantage of having more skill in more than one area of work (promotions for example, or cooking more than one good, etc...) Besides, McDonald's when they were first founded were already automated to a certain degree, if MW increases have already happened and automation hasn't taken over completely, then this is an absurd argument by appealing to fear. They've been around since the 1940's and have seen numerous MW hikes, and yet they went from a self-serving type fast-food chain to an “assembly line” as my source notes. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] Finally, my opponent states “no one knows more about the McDonald's trade offs than McDonald's” which is true, but we have to look at this policy from the economy as a whole and evaluate it, we're not debating if it ought to be implemented, thus we have to go by economists, and the C&K studies, not McDonald's, last time I checked, they're not experts on Macroeconomics, economists are. Also, I cited the Costco vs Walmart for a “controlled experiment” on the impacts of wage hikes. Which is why Roy doesn't want that to be considered; it shows without question the superiority of MW increases. Re3: MW is NOT Welfare My opponent concedes that MW is here to stay for at least some positive reason, he just doesn't want it to get “worse”, besides I already showed through MPL in a monopsonistic competition that wages are below, thus my opponent concedes here. My opponent then goes on to say we have to talk about advantages versus disadvantages, which is true, but it's been around since the 1800's internationally, and is still in 90% of the world. If we want to weight in the +/- consequences of this policy, then to empirically test it's soundness we must see what it's impacts are, and assume the government is involved with MW and violating the right to contract, otherwise his whole case around the empirical of MW losing jobs has to be tossed out as irrelevant, because he simply has no data to show, and concedes that his model is a bunch of generalities, not preciseness. The Gini coefficient is important, when inequality is reduced, crime decrease, social cohesion improves, quality of life improves, and economic incentives develop, all this by increasing MW, to which my opponent didn't contest and just claimed “it's a measure” yet the two are correlated, and show the "spin-off" effect of increases. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] Drops: My opponent drops that MW has been around for years due to it's effectiveness, and it has been internationally accepted in other parts of the world. In fact, some parts it's socially employed not legally My opponent drops my monopsonistic argument favouring businesses unfairly My opponent drops that MW may cause tech improvements, and his contradicting claims in RD2(prices)Thank You