not sure that is true - Would the demand for McDonnel’s hamburgers dramatically change if they cost 10% more, 20 % more ?? Feel the odds are they would still sell hamburgers and still need people to flip them.
At least in that case the increase in salary to “living wage” would be paid by the people eating the burgers. Instead of a passive tax on all to keep burger prices low for the burger eaters !!
I don’t object to being taxed in the least. I object to being taxed to make a business model work that pays people too little money to live on.
Thank you
All you want to know about the price of a BigMac around the world:
Here is the origin of the BigMac Index:
The Economist
16 Jul 2025 — The Big Mac index was invented by The Economist in 1986 as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level.
No. The increase in salary (for the lucky ones) would be paid for by the business owner employing fewer people and working them harder or seeking alternatives to humans eg robots, automation, ordering on a screen terminal, self check out etc. The less valuable worker will simply not get the job because he can’t compete, thereby making the state pay and denying him the dignity of work albeit lowly paid.
Compelling high minimum wages doesn’t help those whom employers don’t consider valuable enough to hire at those rates. Nobody gets a living wage in after-school jobs or apprenticeships when they start. I didn’t start on a living wage. Did you?
Give or take 55% on min wage workers are 25 or under, 45% are over 25 - Math!!
You will note I never said all minimum wage workers are school leavers etc. So there are certainly older ones but my main point stands. These workers are better off and the national is better off if they are employed. Simply requiring employers to pay more for minimum wage workers will mean employers will reduce the number of workers thereby further burdening the state and/or disrupting communities with disfunctional and dissolute people.
You will find good arguments for abolishing any sort of minimum wage. I like Milton Friedman. A couple of quotes.
“Every economist knows that minimum wages either do nothing or cause inflation and unemployment. That’s not a statement, it’s a definition.”
“The real tragedy of minimum wage laws is that they are supported by well-meaning groups who want to reduce poverty. But the people who are hurt most by higher minimums are the most poverty stricken.”
Friedman’s ideas have been proven wrong, especially about inflation and his ‘shareholder value’ nonsense was the beginning of the greed is good corruption that still exists. I’m glad he’s dead.
I am impressed with the clarity of your crystal ball, and the complete confidence in the accuracy of your predictions on stuff that has not happened.
Myself, I am full of doubts about the best way to address the problem of the working poor. My original post was just an attempt at having you look at it from a different angle.
FYI - So far on the $20 min wage in California - none of that stuff has happened -
“In response to the sizeable wage increase for California fast food workers, we do not find evidence that employers turned to understaffing or reduced scheduled work hours to offset the increased labor costs. Rather, weekly work hours stayed about the same for California fast food workers, and levels of understaffing appeared to ease.” at least according to this:
/https://shift.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/ca_fastfood_MW_Final.pdf
It does happen. You won’t know about it because employers don’t need to tell you. Your example of California may be true. I don’t know, but I doubt it. Employers react to increased costs - can you simply accept that as a start? Then we can move to economics lesson 2.
As a former food store owner [before I got “sane” and went to sea], I’m disinclined to accept your evidence without a counter argument. There is a direct correlation between price increases on a product, and “customer-count”. So that means fewer customers are buying more expensive burgers. . . On a personal note, my fast-food purchases are reduced here in ID because $6.00 hamburgers aren’t worth it.
Lastly, here’s another point-of-view report:
And another: https://www.cato.org/blog/yes-californias-fast-food-minimum-wage-law-has-killed-thousands-jobs
Oddly enough, this is not all a theory. Both the USA and UK went through a free-for-all era when one could pay children 10 cents a day to swim laps in a tank of sulfuric acid if one was so inclined.
In both cases a lot of money was made very quickly by some and the burgeoning social unrest among the unwashed masses threatened society as a whole and the experiment ended.
So you call my study, and raise me 2 others !!! 
but i have to question your entire post after seeing “ sane - went to sea”
So his ‘shareholder value’ is nonsense but it still exists
so which part was nonsense?
Basically shareholder value has been used to enrich the CEOs by tying their pay to the stock price with no value added to the long term prospects of the corporation. Results in short term planning and stock price manipulation. Stock buy backs which used to be illegal unless stringent conditions were met is one example. Then there is this.
Share holder returns has gone awry in the USA its all about share price as you mention ceo pay based on that and not making money for dividends.
Huge divide now as profit has nothing to do with share price in the USA, the old greed and fear taking over.
Fake accounting pumps the share price but not dividends.
No. they haven’t.
Anyway, I quoted him on minimum wages. Were those ideas “proven wrong”? I doubt it. But, as usual, you attack the man and not the ball. Simply saying he’s wrong doesn’t cut it as an argument.
Try this. If high minimum wages are so good, why did California stop at $20? Why not $30? $50? Surely those higher minimum wages would be better? Or does something else happen?
If Milton’s not your man, how about Thomas Sowell?
Bottom line, Government doesn’t have our best interest. It’s simply about $$ and power. Both sides have major issues. The last administration imo was a total clown show on so many levels. This administration basically the same. Each has their own agenda one isn’t any better than the other.
AP today:
In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. government’s gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on America’s balance sheet.
It’s also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic — the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year.
The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nation’s daily finances.
Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush’s Treasury Department, told The Associated Press that a growing debt load over time leads ultimately to higher inflation, eroding Americans’ purchasing power.
The Government Accountability Office outlines some of the impacts of rising government debt on Americans — including higher borrowing costs for things like mortgages and cars, lower wages from businesses having less money available to invest, and more expensive goods and services…
Post WW2 USA decided to run a deficit economy to fill the world with dollars.
Today is just nearer the end of that plan and nobody knows how it ends.
It made lots rich so 28 trillion divided by the population?