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I have mixed feelings, I know my grandpa bought his first house making minimum wage back in the day, and now those on it can barely afford their 15 year old car & the gas to fill it. It needs to be raised, those who work these jobs need to be able to live on it & support themselves and family working these jobs.

@TemperanceBrennan: In my opinion, I don't think CEO pay has anything to do with a small business being put of of business by higher minimum wages. Typically the outrage over CEO pay has been with big Fortune 500 companies and not small businesses.

Reducing a CEO's pay at McDonalds' wouldn't change the price of hamburgers very much (especially given that most stores are franchises and not company owned) while pushing the min wage to $15/hr would cause the price of all menu items to go up and probably cause demand to go down.

@looch: It's not a cap in earnings though, it's just saying some of the benefit has to go to more than just the man at the top.
The one in Switzerland wanted it to be a 1:12 ratio, which I agree is a bit extreme but I don't see the problem with a 1:100 ratio.

But on average in the US it's more like a 350:1 . Seems a bit ludicrous for all the profits to be going to the top, especially when their workers are taking up federal tax dollars in low wage support programs.

In Ontario it is $10.50/hour. I've talked to a few clients (small business owners) about what would happen if there was an increase. Many said they'd have to decrease staff hours/lay people off. This is mostly from those in the retail business.

@Mrs. Champagne: My parents owned a small business and $10/hour was the lowest amount they paid their workers before the min wage hike came into effect.

@Maysprout: I think if you limited CEO salaries like that, you would just create a system where the money gets accounted for differently.

According to this article (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/ceo-pay-1-795-to-1-multiple-of-workers-skirts-law-as-sec-delays.html) 90% of compensation was in multi-year vesting stock for 2 specific CEOs. If you change accounting rules to account for the stock in the year it vests, you change the picture drastically.

@Maysprout: I haven't read through the comments but I totally agree!

Higher wages mean that employees spend more in their communities because the people that benefit most rom any increase aren't likely to be saving the extra money, they're probably spending it on groceries and utilities!

There's a lot if talk in NZ and England (I think) at the moment about the concept of a "living wage". The idea is that it's an hourly rate based on a single person working 40-45 hours per week (or a family with two adults working a combined 60-70 hours per week) and living a simple lifestyle but providing for them to make a worthwhile contribution to the community. The figure in NZ equates to around $18-19 per hour and it is not linked to minimum wage which is about $14 over here.

Personally, I believe that an adult working full time in an honest occupation shouldn't need to rely on welfare or state assistance to survive. And at the end of the day, minimum wage jobs will always exist and society will always need people to work them!

@loveisstrange: I agree!

@Mrs. Champagne: @pui: actually it's only 10.25$.

And not to sound snarky but 25 cents is a huge difference, especially when those working minimum wage jobs only get an 10 to 30 cents an hour raise each year.

Personally I'd like to see our minimum wage go up to 12-13$/hr.

@jedeve: I was going to come post the same thing pretty much.

I'm not sure of the best number to raise minimum wage to, but I am a firm believer that if you increase wages, even just a little, that money will be spent and help the economy more than it will hurt it.

So I read this thread but didn't feel like I had anything to add at the time. I just read this from one of my fav blogs and thought I'd share. It's not directly talking about minimum wage (and doesn't address @HLK208's point about small businesses) but I think it connects: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2014/01/30/businesses-are-swimming-in-money-more-profit-protection-will-not-end-the-recession

@Kemma living wage is a talking point here too. I was a Sociology major and did my senior capstone on living wage and how it affects women/women at work. Lots of people (not just women) find themselves fighting 'cliff effects' where they get a 25 cent raise, and then don't qualify for a ton of services that end up costing them much, much more than the raise gave them. So, I agree on the importance of a living wage but also would want to see cliff effects addressed alongside minimum wage discussions

I've always been drawn to the notion that the lowest paid in a company should be paid no less than some percentage of the highest paid, probably in proportion to the size of the company. No idea how to settle on the details, though.

And consumers pay for the wages of the lowest income people regardless, whether it's through purchases to contribute to a higher minimum wage, or through taxes to contribute to social welfare programs. I suppose I'd rather people get paid for their work than paid not to work, but we needn't inflate the importance of certain jobs, either. Teachers should definitely make more than fast food workers.