minimum wage should exist

The first point I will discuss is your level of a living wage. In saying that you believe the wage should be high enough so that a single person can live, you are not just setting a minimum that employees can pay, but a "living wage" which is high enough that a person can live without additional help from the government. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a person living in rural Nebraska, having no savings, no renters insurance, no visits to restaurants ever, no additional expenditures beyond the absolute minimum to survive, needs at least $10.00 an hour. In poor towns in West Virginia, the poorest state in America, a person needs at least $14.00 an hour. In Columbus, Ohio, a person needs more than $15.00 an hour. In my hometown of Costa Mesa, California, a person needs more than $21.00 per hour, just to be able to live here. Now lets see what the effects of this kind of a wage increase would have on some of our largest corporations, who take in massive profits. Can they afford a living wage for their workers? I'll use Wal-Mart as an example. Walmart employs 1.4 million workers in the U.S. alone. Using a conservative estimate, lets say only 1/3rd of those workers are working at the minimum wage level of 5.15 an hour full time, which would be 466,666 workers. Now, working at full time, this costs 4.8 Billion dollars per year in just paying workers wages, not including training or benefits. WalMarts total revenue in 2007 was 348.7 Billion dollars, with a net (before tax) income of 11.3 Billion. If you increased the national minimum wage to $10.00 an hour, the absolute minimum for the absolute poorest state, it would cost WalMart an additional 4.5 billion dollars in wages alone for only U.S. employees. If the amount is increased to $14.00 an hour, Walmarts total before tax income shrinks to less than 2 billion, not a small sum, but an very small profit margin for the largest employer in the U.S. And if the amount was increased to the $21.00 an hour required to live in my hometown, Walmart would be 3.8 billion dollars in debt. Now with these very conservative estimates, how do you think this would have an effect on a small business, who's total year end profits many times are not even in the hundreds of thousands? How could anyone start a restaurant or a small clothing store or any other kind of small business when suddenly your labor costs have tripled from 5 to 15 dollars. Increases in labor cost increase unemployment, all things the same: This is microeconomics 202. Supply and Demand laws say this will always happen, and this is undisputed by economists. The question is how much more will people be unemployed. According to a study done by the Cato institute, when the minimum wage was raised only $.90 cents, from $3.35 in 1990 (the minimum wage was not 3.50 in the 80's), to $4.25 in 1991, employment among low wage workers fell, on average, 2% across the board. Now, if an only a $.90 forced wage increase causes a 2% increase in unemployment among low wage workers, increasing the minimum wage to the "live able" amount of $10.00, could cause an over 12% Increase in low wage unemployment. Increasing it to the West Virginian level of $14, unemployment among low wage workers could rise to over 19% in Additional unemployment. In summary, your wage increases would not only bankrupt the vast majority of businesses but also disemploy vastly more people than they would help. You say if a business can't pay a living wage then they don't deserve to be in business. How can a business even run at your repressive wage levels? How could a business get started when right from the start the business can't afford to hire anyone? And what gives you the right to decide who can and can't do business? Just because it seems good that everyone gets a pay raise in no way means that it would be good in reality nor does it mean that it is good in a moral sense. I'll admit that some businessmen are unscrupulous, but many are not. What gives you the right to shut down their businesses? In one way, you are giving to people, but it comes at a direct cost to businesses. One could say that you are stealing from one for the benefit of another. You said: "Basically, I believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to get God's resources." God's resources? First of all, our constitution says absolutely nothing about this nation's resources belonging to God. Millions of people in this country do not believe in a personal god, nor do many people who do believe in a personal god think that we should have a theistic-communitarian society you described. Maybe certain politicians refuse to acknowledge it, but this is a secular nation, and you legislate a wage increase because your interpretation of god says he/she/it want' s this kind of society. Your philosophical argument is exactly that: yours. Philosophy cannot trump the facts of this issue, which is that your minimum wage increases unemployment much higher than the benefit the increased wages give to a few.