Fast food workers in walkout to demand double the pay...

[Glen Contrarian]

Already, it's clear that you missed the point (and didn't read my link). Businesses adjust their models according to profitability (they admit it fully and unabashedly). So if you use the law to force pay to be according to the worker's circumstances and needs, business models will adjust by favoring employing people with stable circumstances and fewer financial needs (e.g., teenagers), for whom they can (fairly) justify paying less, as well as by hiring fewer people overall wherever possible, and finally by raising prices.

And so in the end, all you've done is inadvertently taken opportunities away from the very people you purport to be helping, the people who financially need those opportunities most, all because of your utter failure to understand business and anticipate their next moves.

So if that's the case, then, the nations that have no minimum wage and little or no union presence should be strongly outperforming the socialized democracies of the world...and the nations that have a significant minimum wage should already have dropped out of first-world status over the past half-century. But this didn't happen - why?

 

[radcen]

I eat more fast food than I should, but really, if they walked off the job I'd get by just fine. In fact, they'd probably be doing me a favor.

 

[Neomalthusian]

So if that's the case, then, the nations that have no minimum wage and little or no union presence should be strongly outperforming the socialized democracies of the world...and the nations that have a significant minimum wage should already have dropped out of first-world status over the past half-century. But this didn't happen - why?

At no point recently were we talking about "performance," whatever that means, no what we were talking about was the well-being of the poor, and your idea causes businesses to re-strategize in a way that is ultimately not helpful for the poor. Read the link I provided earlier if you want further illustration.

You just got done proposing wages vary according to the financial needs of the worker. Do you honestly not understand that such a policy would cause businesses to prefer to hire the people who need money the least, making it hardest for those who need the money most to even land jobs?

Come on man, THINK!