that at least is a wage where basic necessities can be met

We need some inflation, though there's a "right" pace to do it at.

The minimum amount needed to exist in todays world.

How can you possibly equate the minimum wage in Mobile Alabama with NYC.

Let's look at your premise: If the minimum wage goes up to a certain amount, other wages will rise an equal amount.

In theory, that's lovely. In reality, it doesn't happen.

The $10 an hour worker will still get $10 an hour. I worked at McDonald's in the early 2000s and started a quarter or so above minimum wage. The minimum wage rose twice while I was there. Guess what? The first time, my wage was set at the minimum wage. The next time, after a year and getting a quarter raise for longevity, my wage was again set at minimum wage. So, two years in, and I was still making minimum wage, despite several longevity raises (which were just tossed out the window).

In experience, if you raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, you just set more people at minimum wage.

You made the fatal mistake of "Scarface," you underestimated the other guy's greed. Business leaders are fucking assholes and won't give a dime more than they must. That's something that needs to be considered.

When the minimum wage has been raised in the past, other wages have gone up likewise.

to be effective.

AT MINIMUM $14.00

Any labor is worth what it cost to live, simple as that in my way of thinking.
Here in OK it is cheaper to live than say on either coast so that should be taken into account at the minimum

Above a certain "wage", they should be taxed at 90%, in my opinion. Personally, I would set it at about $5 million per year and everything after that would be taxed at a very high rate.

We've already demonstrated that a "minimum wage" is not working out too well. Minimum wage as we know it is literally below poverty level, with most workers unable to meet basic needs and dependent on various social programs for survival.

Given that cost of living is dependent on local economic factors, I'd suggest taking a look at this before any sort of national policy discussion goes for too long:

http://livingwage.mit.edu/



Laura

This is the discussion we need to have.

about setting a Minimum Wage to a point where people can live without subsidy, reasonably, is that it would actually save the government money, and shift the cost of supporting lower class families onto the employers, where it ought to be. Consider Walmart, the largest employer in the nation, a corporation who's business model is based on under-paying employees and letting the government top up their necessities through SNAP and other means. Reasonable minimum wage laws would eliminate that practice.

While there's the upside that it would create upwards pressure on wages and pump a lot more money through the economy, there is the downside that it would create upwards pressure on wages and pump a lot more money through the economy. By that I mean, when the you pump up wages at the bottom end like that, and push everyone else's wages higher, you create a lot of inflationary pressure on the market and - in the longer term - prices will inflate to meet that new wage level. Wage can be keyed to inflation to moderate this, and I feel that the benefits far outweigh the negatives, ultimately.

the problem of how the highest wage is calculated ... does that include investment income. In my world, the highest income would include ALL monies, and then the minimum wage would be a percentage of that as a function of how skewed the highest income was and the resulting distribution.

It ought to be tied to the rise in inflation accounted for geography.

How much does rent cost?
Transportation?
Food?
Healthcare?

etc.