The workers are human, per the article mainly women with childen, poor, mobility is sometimes limited for low wage employees(jobs they can get to, time they have to look for new employment, ability to relocate to a different city) , so yes, they work for what they can get but not becuase they really want to or are happy with the wage; they have to. They do not have all of these fantasy options that you all dream up.

That is definitely a severe limitation of empirical economic analysis, and one that those using economic studies do not seem to fully appreciate when it comes to the confidence in which they assert their conclusions.

The solution to that problem is not to toss up your hands at the futility of economic knowledge. It is to place greater emphasis on an objective rational framework in which to interpret observed data. The depth and complexity of that framework must be greater than what is frequently necessary in the hard sciences. That, and an irrational skepticism against objective reason (and perhaps an element of intellectual laziness, or ideological defense), leaves many economists clinging to the impossible notion of an empirical economic science.

With minimum wage, we have a good example of this. You have the latter type of economist actually thinking that the C-K data proved (and could possibly prove) the objective necessary rational foundation of economics to be incorrect.

A good economist (e.g. one from the school of Mises) would rightly treat any empirical claim requiring that logical contradictions are real, or that human nature is not what it is, with extreme skepticism.

You’re correct we can’t test things in lab conditions, but natural experiments happen all the time. You just have to know where to look.

The way we have it now, is that you can test and prove almost anything you want, which is why we have Keynes.

When you increase costs on supply (e.g., supply being those companies which hire people and manufacture products) it does increase supplied price per unit quantity (i.e. shifts the supply curve left). But the prices and quantities for the S/D curves in that analysis are for the manufactured product being sold, not the labor.

When analyzing the price and quantity of labor (wages), labor is supplied by workers, demanded by employers. E.g., employers will want more labor when the price decreases (that is a demand curve). Workers will want to provide more labor when the price increases (a supply curve).

Europeans also, unwittingly, accept a lower standard of living as a result.
Perhaps that is why they resent Americans.

Minimum wage reduces the supply of below min. wage jobs.
Ignoring such laws will increase the supply of such jobs.

One problem with the discussion over jobs is the inability of many to perceive jobs as a cost. I tried to explain to a friend that the purpose of economic activity is to create goods and services, not to create jobs.

If large companies but not small companies were subject to high minimum wage laws, the large companies would outsource even more functions.

That may mean the employer chooses not to do those low labor tasks, or it may mean he distributes those tasks among the existing responsibilities of his higher wage employees.

Either way, no matter how you slice it, it is the low wage worker who suffers most.

The true minimum wage is always zero.

Draw your supply and demand curves, cut them with an above market price floor, and tell me if you like what you see–a surplus of supply (labor).

I think that those companies can adjust to minimum wages more easily and compensate the payroll costs in an adequate fashion.

So what about giving minimum wages based on company size?

Exactly. They’re hard to find for interviews because minimum-wage laws destroy jobs for low-skilled workers. You can’t interview the guy/gal whose job doesn’t exist.

It is the same here. With minimum wage laws, they have effectively outlawed low-wage labor. But outlawing low-wage labor does not reduce the demand for it. Rather, it means that low-wage labor must be obtained through “extra-legal” means. In this case, that means intentionally skirting the laws and pressuring employees to help the employers control costs by doing the same.