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Comment by mmanfrin | Hacker News Reader

This is the main argument I hear from people who are against the push to raise the minimum wage to $15.

Question to you: how does others who used to earn less than you now earning the same as you affect you?

Whether you support a minimum wage increase or not, to think that it won't affect other people than those that are getting the increase just isn't true. Here's some possible side effects.

- Prices of products or services increase to compensate for the increase in salary.

- Higher paid employees don't get raises since the money that was previously allocated for that is being used to pay for the minimum wage increase. (This seems to be happening in this case, where more experienced workers received little to no increase in compensation).

- Other benefits are removed or reduced to cover the additional cost (health insurance, vacation, sick leave, etc)

- The company can no longer be profitable with the additional costs and reduces the size of their workforce or shuts down completely.

Which of these side effects (if any) occur, depends on the company and its current profits, management and/or investors, as well as how much they are already paying employees.

Or perhaps the company makes more money because the minimum wage workers are happier, work harder, and don't quit as often, leading to lower turnover costs, and because the company's customers (often minimum wage workers themselves) have more money to spend. Note the steady increase in restaurants and other food service companies in Seattle as the minimum wage increase phases in[0].

[0] http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/07/chipotle-spices-up-the-...

Ask yourself - If you are making minimum plus x and they raise the minimum to your salary mark, do you consider your worth to be "the minimum" or would you prefer your wage rise in tune with the increase?

My guess is the latter.

The argument against minimum wage increases is that it has a ripple effect and raises other wages as well.

> The argument against minimum wage increases is that it has a ripple effect and raises other wages as well

CORRECTED: The argument IN FAVOR of minimum wage increases is that it has a ripple effect and raises other wages as well

Answer: It raises prices for everyone, because the vast majority of companies will not simply absorb the hit to profitability, assuming they even have the ability to absorb a cost increase that large at all.

Your answer appears to be wrong.

Here are inflation figures for the UK from 1990 to 2015:

http://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/uk-historical-in...

Can you spot the year that minimum wage was first introduced in the UK?

It could raise your cost of living (e.g., housing) because now there are more people who could afford to pay a certain price for something than before.

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