Increasing the Minimum Wage (Part II)

Yesterday, we had a good discussion about increasing the minimum wage. Our pal Heidi Moore tackled the issue in The Guardian today:

Business leaders and plump Washington lawmakers would do well to try to step back from their fat bank accounts and their sense of entitlement and put themselves in the shoes of someone who works part-time just to be able to afford food to eat and a bed for the night. Is that the America they want to create? Because keeping poor people down so that they can’t even dream of being middle-class seem like a full-time task — although it seems to pay those corporate leaders a lot more than minimum wage.

The response on Twitter has been supportive, and well, not so supportive:

[View the story “Debating a Minimum Wage Increase” on Storify]

It didn’t stop there. Actually it’s still might be going on. Brent Cox says it best:

@moorehn remind me never to argue with you when I’m clearly wrong.

— Brent Cox (@titivil) February 14, 2013

An actual small business owner, Selwyn Yosslowitz of the Marmalade Café in El Segundo, Calif. told Marketplace that there wouldn’t be layoffs if the minimum wage were to be raised:

“It wouldn’t be layoffs,” Yosslowitz says. “But maybe you make the hours more efficient. There’s lots of people who come in at 9 o’clock right now. I would make sure they come in at 9:30 and cut off half an hour across the board to be able to afford the increase.”

Serbin and a co-worker from Peru say their hours are sometimes cut when business is really slow and management sends them home early.

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