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It's not controversial among economists. Economists largely oppose it, and agree that it will especially increase unemployment among the youth.

The only real question (from a scientific perspective, not from a political perspective) is whether there will be enough other things in the economy to offset the negative effects.

We have free education through 12th grade. The overwhelming majority of people making minimum wage didn't graduate high school. So what good what more free education do?

Check out http://www.prwatch.org/node/4458

Other frontgroups include; http://www.handsoff.org/ http://www.minimumwage.com/ http://www.abionline.org/ http://www.consumerfreedom.com/ http://www.epionline.org/ http://www.animalscam.com/ http://www.activistcash.com/ http://www.consumerfreedom.com/ http://www.activistcash.com/ http://www.physicianscam.com/ http://www.epionline.org/ http://www.abionline.org/ http://www.physicianscam.com/ http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ http://www.nannyculture.com/ http://www.cspiscam.com/ http://www.animalscam.com/ http://www.maddatgm.com/ http://www.cspiscam.com/ http://www.bacdebate.com/ http://www.bacdebate.com/ http://www.maddatgm.com/ http://www.responsibledrinker.com/ http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ http://www.bermanco.com/ http://www.firstjobs.org/ http://www.petapetition.com/ http://www.bermanco.com/ http://www.obesityscam.com/ http://www.rottenacorn.com/ http://www.madcowscare.com/
http://www.livingwage.com/

Check out http://www.prwatch.org/node/4458

Other frontgroups include; http://www.handsoff.org/ http://www.minimumwage.com/ http://www.abionline.org/ http://www.consumerfreedom.com/ http://www.epionline.org/ http://www.animalscam.com/ http://www.activistcash.com/ http://www.consumerfreedom.com/ http://www.activistcash.com/ http://www.physicianscam.com/ http://www.epionline.org/ http://www.abionline.org/ http://www.physicianscam.com/ http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ http://www.nannyculture.com/ http://www.cspiscam.com/ http://www.animalscam.com/ http://www.maddatgm.com/ http://www.cspiscam.com/ http://www.bacdebate.com/ http://www.bacdebate.com/ http://www.maddatgm.com/ http://www.responsibledrinker.com/ http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ http://www.bermanco.com/ http://www.firstjobs.org/ http://www.petapetition.com/ http://www.bermanco.com/ http://www.obesityscam.com/ http://www.rottenacorn.com/ http://www.madcowscare.com/
http://www.livingwage.com/

"redistributed gravy"!?!?!

And that's your proposal for a "better system"? And characterizing criticism as dog-eat-dog hyper capitalism or globalism? Nice either-or strawman, shit-for-brains. Or is that also a preemptive attempt at painting your critics with an ad hominem brush? (Note well I don't use subtlety in my ad hominem attacks, re: "shit-for-brains", so your brush was useless against me) And just who the hell determines what a "fair redistribution" is? Will some animals be more equal than others this time around, too?

If you mandate a high enough minimum wage, you price no-skilled and low-skilled persons right out of the labor market. Look at how inner-city unemployment rates in the US track minimum wage increases almost exactly. Here's just one of many studies and other data confirming this.

Because if an employee can't contribute more to the bottom line than he costs, no employer will hire him.

This is your proposed "better system"? Better for who? Government bureaucrats? Tax collectors? Self-styled and self-important "progressive intellectuals" who just "know" in their compassionate and concientious hearts it's a better system? (i.e., academics and limosine liberals...)

What a load of pie-in-the-sky shit.

Of course, by pricing no-skilled and low-skilled workers out of the job market you create a class of folks totally dependent on government handouts to survive and thus a "vote-for-me-and-get-a-bigger-welfare-check" voting block. (No wonder "progressives" are so adamantly opposed to W's ideas for Social Security accounts that individuals actually own....)

A "living wage" is a nice idea in the same way as "we'll give everyone a billion dollars so everyone can live like a billionaire" is a nice idea. They both utterly ignore the econics of supply and demand.

Having a conscience has nothing to do with it. And it's not idealism if an idea is based on forcing employers to act against their best interests just to advance what you think are the best interest of the employed.

It's quite telling that you used the term "redistributed gravy" when you define your "living wage". I've heard there's some document out there somehere that mentions we're entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". I've yet to see one that mentions "redistributed gravy".

You are not making any points. You keep regurgitating that they need standards and living wages and minimum wage and all these things that I knock down repeatedly, yet you continue on in the most pretentious and mocking manner. If I left out quoted text it's because it was redundant. If I missed something important, than bring it to my attention. Otherwise you are creating strawmen.

Here is the link, I hope it doesn't disappear again:
here

I can not quote you on everything because it is reptetious and mostly void of argument. I do my best to summarize your arguments (rather than quoting paragraphs and making red herrings) because it is simply more logical, and a more condensed read. Let me start with your arguments you've made and why they are wrong:

1. Companies should be forced to pay living wages and improve living standards of their employees.
Wrong. As I've said before you are damning them to unemployment. You consistently ignore that in every post you make, and it is the crux of my argument.
Providing a low wage is not slavery whatsoever. Like I said it's voluntarily. You say that's stupid because they will die without the job so they have to take it, and therefore have no choice. Let's see why this is a poor argument.
i) If the choice is to take this job or starve to death, your solution is to let them starve, or at least the majority of them through your insane minimum wage laws.
ii) If the choice is to take this job or take another low paying job, you are making them worse off by preventing them from getting access to those jobs, either through minimum wage or making it outright illegal.
You then list off a host of oxymorons: Voluntary rape, voluntary slavery, voluntary murder, etc. None of these make any sense. They would really be: voluntary sex, voluntary work, and voluntary suicide. Very poor argument.
They choose to work in hazardous conditions and take a low pay? Why? Because they would rather take this job than a local job. Who are you to deny them that? Once again: you cannot give them better working conditions because you will be damning to unemployment. Come up with a better solution, if you can.

As far as I can tell that's your major argument. And you've made no effort other than pejoratives to argue back. Come up with a solution that doesn't involve massive unemployment in third world countries and we'll talk.

2. We are exporting our jobs away making us poorer
You brought this up on 2 occasions and both times you ignored an important reality.
As I've said many times, cheaper imports mean more savings which mean more spending. Yes, a minority of people will lose their jobs, but many more will gain jobs now that the economy has grown due to the increased spending power of money. It's likely that person will find work in one of these new jobs. Whether it's better or not depends on the talents of that person. It's possible he won't get a better job, but that's no excuse for forcing millions of people to pay for overpriced goods.
You are only looking at it from one side, while conveniently ignoring the millions of other people who have benefited and contributed to the economy. The car example is one of these. Yes, the automakers lost their jobs, but thousands of other people gained jobs. Yet you conveniently ignored this.

3. It apparently doesn't take into account, a vast labor pool of desperate laborers, which means no need to increase wages. No labor laws, means no incentive to improve wages, or working conditions. As you've pointed out, its not economical to do so, and there is no incentive to for a business to do any of that. Therefore, they do not gain better wages, and the economy does not improve, or if it does, it takes a very long time. D therefore doesn't take place, or when it does, all the jobs are lost when the people or government make demands on better conditions. The compan

I'll refer to the research of the Economic Policy Institute about the minimum wage.

I'll see your policy wonk think tank and raise you 1, 2, 3 4 5. I'm sure you could do the same. Once you get beyond the simple laws of economics (like supply and demand) to more complex theories I challenge you to find any two economists that really agree with each other. "If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions." - Winston Churchill

Don't overuse the simple model of supply and demand, especially when issues like pricing, competition, floors, and perception are involved. The most useful models are far, far more complex.

The reality of course is far more complex than a simple graph of supply and demand. Unfortunately I don't see any evidence that any of the multitude of competing, contradicting complex models put out by a wide array of economists are any better. As I said economics is NOT really a science, they try and I think there is a good body of fundamental, basic insights into the basic behavior of economies. But as economic models become more complex the more controversial they are, there is no consensus aside from intellectual fads that wax and wane over time. Polls of economists over the years seem to indicate a great deal of agreement on the basics (like the law of supply and demand AND it's application to the minimum wage and price controls generally) while there is no agreement on the complex theories that purport to trump those basic rules. ("when done 'right', under certain conditions, at this time but not this other time, please forget that my last economic forecast was utterly wrong - I can explain that" etc. etc. etc.)

In any event even the complex models that attempt to show price controls on labor as being an exception to the basic rules of supply and demand that the vast majority of economists would agree apply to every other commodity are valid only at the margins. Perhaps a slight increase in the minimum wage would have no ill effects but I think even the most liberal economist would agree that an outrageous increase (say to $100 per hour just for an extreme example) would have a bad effect on employment. Where then is the cut-off, or the tipping point where the advantages for the poor outweigh the disadvantages? Is there even such a tipping point or does the ill effect just get smaller until it is masked by the various other effects that are also operating on the unemployment rate (or just easier to explain away as being due to other factors). If President Clinton raised the minimum wage marginally during a time of economic expansion and nearly "full employment" would we even notice the ill effects (unemployment was low, but would it have been lower still)? Would raising minimum wages during the early stages of a jobless recovery see the same absence (or masking) of ill effects? Would raising the minimum wage from $5.15/hr to a "living wage" often asserted to be $14/hr - well over double the current rate - have the same non-existent or negligible ill effects?

I think the basic laws of economics are fundamentally sound and underlie the immense complexity often masks them and provide numerous APPARENT counter-examples. I have no such confidence in various complex theories that attempt to show that these counter-examples are themselves the rule rather than the exception and that we can now ignore the old fundamental rules.

Here are some URLs for your research:

• Welfare to Work and Illiteracy
• Houston Literacy Notes
• A Nation at Risk

The last reference includes the following quote:

Some 23 million American adults are functionally illiterate by the simplest tests of everyday reading, writing, and comprehension. About 13 percent of all 17-year-olds in the United States can be considered functionally illiterate. Functional illiteracy among minority youth may run as high as 40 percent.