[amalrik_maia]

Minimum wage is one of those ideas that is evaluated more for its intentions than for its results. We are only employed as long as we can generate sufficient profit for the company, if salaries are artificially raised you only made some people unemployable.

[tankenmate]

At the same time though companies that can afford to pay more do and what's more that money is far more likely to wind up in the local economy as poor people spend far more of their income than rich people (or companies for that matter).

Low wages only leads to a race to the bottom, greater inequality, and finally lower growth because the people most likely to spend money don't have any. And based on how most OECD economies have been doing since 2008 it looks like the low growth of the last decade will probably hang around for longer. Unless the inequality shifts this will be low growth like it was during several hundred years of the feudal system.