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Modest minimum wages do not seem to sap demand for labour. Truckloads of studies, from both America and Europe, show that at low levels—below 50% of median full-time income, with a lower rate for young people—minimum wages do not destroy many jobs.
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Encouraged by this evidence, many are clamouring to make minimum wages far more generous. In America campaigners want the federal minimum wage more than doubled from today’s stingy $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour, or 77% of median hourly income. They have had some success; several big cities, including New York this week, plan to phase in a $15 minimum wage, and Hillary Clinton’s two rivals for the Democratic nomination support the policy (see article). In Britain the Conservative government is overruling the technocrats who usually set the wage floor to shift it from 47% to 54% of median pay. Germany has introduced a minimum wage which is reasonable in, say, Cologne but is worth a generous 62% of median pay in the poorer east of the country.
By moving towards sharply higher minimum wages, policymakers are accelerating into a fog. Little is known about the long-run effects of modest minimum wages (see page 66). And nobody knows what big rises will do, at any time horizon. It is reckless to assume that because low minimum wages have seemed harmless, much larger ones must be, too.
http://www.economist.com/news/leade...higher-minimum-wages-dangerous-reckless-wager
As evidenced from the last MW thread a few days ago, a lot of MW proponents argue quite strongly that raising the federal MW to $15/hour will be just fine. Most MW proponents in that thread refused to acknowledge the fact that MW hikes usually bring about layoffs but the few that did acknlowedge this fact argued that it was no big deal because the benefits of higher incomes far outweigh any costs associated with job losses from the MW hikes.
Now as the article I reference points out, raising the federal MW to $15/hour, or 77%of median hourly income, is quite high and unprecedented even globally. The article also points out how by "moving towards sharply higher minimum wages, policymakers are accelerating into a fog" and "nobody knows what big rises will do, at any time horizon." While the latter is certainly true, I believe there does exist an example of what we could expect if MW proponents win this policy debate and the federal MW goes from $7.25/hour to $15/hour and that example is Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico has a far less productive economy than does mainland US yet since 1983 its MW was legislated to rise in tandem with mainland US MW. As a result, a full-time MW job in PR pays around 77% of PR's per capita income. If MW proponents have their way and the federal MW goes to $15/hour in mainland US, this will pay roughly around 65% of 2014 US annual per capita income. How has this policy worked out for PR?
Well they've been in a recession for over a decade and...:
according to a 1992 National Bureau of Economic Research analysis. They included “substantially reduced employment on the island” and mass migration of suddenly unemployable lower-skilled workers to the US mainland.
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In short, the minimum wage is a major reason for what a newly published report by two former and one current International Monetary Fund economists calls “the single most telling statistic in Puerto Rico”:
Only 40 percent of the adult population on the island is employed or looking for a job — versus a US labor force participation rate of 63 percent.
http://nypost.com/2015/07/11/how-us-wage-laws-helped-sink-puerto-ricos-economy/
Suffice it to say, be careful what you wish for because you might just get it and the results don't look good.
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TL/DR version:
Moving towards a federal MW of $15/hour is unprecedented and no one knows what the consequences might be. A similar policy was tried in Puerto Rico back in 1983 and the results so far have been horrible. Therefore, be careful what you wish for.