Minimum Wage Laws In The USA Should Be Abolished

Thanks for posting a rebuttal, Pro! Sorry for the delay on this response, by the way.The law's purpose, simply put, has not changed. You cannot dismiss the Great Depression's relevance to the debate since minimum wage laws were enacted in response to the Depression itself. Just because it happened long ago does not mean that it is no longer relevant. World War II happened relatively long ago, as well, but we don't dismiss its relevance to a debate about future world wars.I believe you missed where I clearly offered an alternative to what you believe is the primary goal of minimum wage laws. I said it was to "stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force," which is what the goal remains today. Perhaps my improper usage of "was" harmed my communication.President Obama said that on the idea of raising the minimum wage, not establishing it. Minimum wage laws serve the same purpose today as they always have, though the debate to raise the minimum wage targets other purposes. That is what Mr. Obama was arguing on - surely the same thing would not have been said back when minimum wage laws were first proposed.What I meant with the "reaping the benefits" statement was that the law does not aim to reduce unemployment, as it does not target the unemployed in any way that is designed to put them to work. I referenced that San Francisco had a lower unemployment than the rest of its state, even though it maintained a higher minimum wage. That clearly depends on the statistic that I cited, which draws sources from the Department of Labor.When I said some argued the laws as "catastrophic," I was referring to opponents of raising the minimum wage throughout history - not you. You are right - you did not use that terminology. You argue that minimum wage negatively impacts employment. However, the effectiveness of the law is measured, realistically, by how unemployment would change without the law. The same goes for laws such as those that criminalize murder - we look at how it would be without the law, versus how it is with it. Were we to do as you advocate and abolish minimum wage, many workers would quit in response to lowered wages. If people are quitting in demand that the minimum wage be raised, it is reasonable to say that many more would quit if their security of a wage was abolished outright.Also, studies you have cited have implied that raising minimum wage has led to an increase in unemployment - this an example of false cause. Trends do not always indicate causation, and it can easily be argued that a number of factors affect unemployment with much more precision than the minimum wage. With such a complex array of factors, no amount of studies are going to outright "prove" that minimum wage contributes directly to unemployment. Of course increasing minimum wage increases cost of labor at the same rate. The "spill over," however, as well as the need for more funds to cover this cost, is witnessed in the price of goods - not the difficulty to get employed. Regardless of how minimum wage is, a company still needs just as many employees to operate as it did, previously. Thus, companies will still hire workers as they would before the raise.In effect, the only remaining grounds left to argue on are those that minimum wage does not reduce poverty.