Almost all lowest-paid jobs are in services already, not manufacturing – unskilled manufacturing has already been shipped abroad, as has been all services which could be effectively automated. It will keep happening regardless of minimum wage levels.

Wikipedia has links to relevant research. In multiple studies 10-20% increases in minimum wage resulted it 0-3% decreases in teenage employment (a proxy for unskilled labour). Reduction would have to be >10% for 10% increase in wages for total incomes of that group to be negatively affected. As such jobs are rarely permanent, so times of unemployment are generally distributed among all working poor, it makes sense to simply consider total income instead of employment status. Employment effects are simply nowhere near approaching income effects.

Another unrelated effect which is strangely always ignored in this discussion is government aid for the working poor, which effectively constitutes subsidies for badly paid jobs, increasing taxes and creating disincentives for the rest of the economy. Is it a better idea to tax McDonalds extra and pay its employees welfare; make them increase their wages; or tax everyone else to pay for their employees? The answer seems fairly obvious.

By the way Denmark has $20 hourly minimum wage (all right, it's just $12 PPP), and much lower unemployment than EU average.

A situation peculiar to America is that the minimum wage is now so low that it applies to very few people. Even Walmart employees are paid close to two times minimum wage.

When I say by and large true, I mean only in the first approximation sense. There's plenty of room to quibble around the margins and the exceptions may end up outnumbering the non-exceptions in everyday life. But on a gross scale, I'm pretty confident that raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour (adjusted for inflation) is never going to be a smart economic idea.

Oh, here's a good one because it's so obviously false. This would only be true if demand for low level labour was highly elastic, while in fact it's highly inelastic – so effect of increased wages for the working poor overwhelms any effects of decreased employment. And all research shows no statistically significant effects of minimum wage on employment.

And yet in spite of both theory and practice supporting minimum wage, economists keep claiming it's a horrible idea.

One thing I think would be an easy win for the socially liberal is an economically justifiable version of a luxury tax on the basis that happiness depends more on relative wealth than absolute wealth.

One thing I think would be an easy win for the socially liberal is an economically justifiable version of a luxury tax on the basis that happiness depends more on relative wealth than absolute wealth.

I wonder – economics, because it’s so widely practiced and laced into our political lives, seems to have more of a ‘folk’ or social component than other sciences. I’m not sure that this will affect paradigm shift in academic economics, but I wonder how long it will take for main-stream uptake of those changing ideas.. That is, how much longer will folk economists take to change, and what effect does that delay have?

Either way, thought provoking.

I wonder – economics, because it’s so widely practiced and laced into our political lives, seems to have more of a ‘folk’ or social component than other sciences. I’m not sure that this will affect paradigm shift in academic economics, but I wonder how long it will take for main-stream uptake of those changing ideas.. That is, how much longer will folk economists take to change, and what effect does that delay have?

Either way, thought provoking.