Sorry... a $15 minimum wage is too high

[eniwetok]

202. spreading the wealth is fine

But not all areas of the nation, nor can every business, afford $15 for even the most unskilled worker. Really, Joe's Garage in the backwaters of West Virginia is going to hire a kid and pay them $31k a year to sweep the floor and clean toilets? What wealth does Joe have to spread? You can't apply a wage in a metro area to rural areas.

Yes, of course we need a reasonable national minimum wage just as we expect business to pay OT after 40, and have safe working conditions etc. It's a reasonable expectation given that We The People provide business with plenty of freebies. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027733743

And if a business can't meet these reasonable expectations, perhaps there is something wrong with their business model and they should close or work all the hours themselves.

My point is it's so easy for some here to sit on their high horses and pontificate that OF COURSE everyone, even unskilled teens, should get $15... which means those with skills will get more. Someone here even suggested pay be based on a MW plus their dependencies. Wow... right out of LaLa Land. So $15 plus maybe $5 more an hour per kid... and some business is going to pay $52k a year to a worker because they have two kids when the same work could be done by a single person for $31k?

There are two parties involved here not just one. And we've done much to create an economy that's addicted to a depreciating MW over the past 35 years especially. It's like how back in the 70's the economy was addicted to cheap oil and the OPEC oil embargo hammered us. We need to restructure the economy along numerous lines to make it reasonable again for workers. We need to reverse the sabotaging of our industrial sector with free trade, we need to get that MW back up at least to 1968 levels and from then on have guaranteed COLA increases. Just going back to 1968 MW alone would mean $7300 more a year. We need to prevent companies from fleeing the nation by changing tax laws. We can impose a higher burden on business with a protectionist economy than one where business has all these escape hatches.