[xienze]

What everyone fails to realize is that every job has a maximum value associated with it, and therefore a maximum wage, assuming your employer isn’t in the business of losing money. When you raise the minimum wage to $X/hr, by necessity employers (again, in the interests of not losing money) will no longer be able to offer jobs that generate less than $X/hr in revenue. This becomes a problem for people who lack the skill to perform a job that generates at least $X/hr — they become unemployable, either through job elimination or automation.

[true_religion]

I know what the minimum wage does. I would prefer directly supporting the unemployeable to increase their skills, rather than forcing them to accept multiple minimum wage jobs and have no free time to learn.

[RhysU]

...and when you encounter a person whose skills cannot, at present and for whatever reason, be elevated above the minimum wage floor what do you do?

[true_religion]

If they can’t be elevated at present or in future, then that ought to be an edge case. If it is widespread then we have a a larger societal problem to deal with than merely setting a minimum wage.