Even the liberal local media reports that the minimum wage hike is going to hurt small business.

The national minimum wage increased by 70 cents last week – a small amount that is going to make a big difference.

Inflation and the down turning economy is one thing. But, adding the recent hike in minimum wage can be an extra challenge for small business owners.

[…]

Some people like Austin resident Jessica Wade worry companies struggling to pay more will have to cut back.

“My biggest concern is that businesses will have to cut back on hours in order to pay one person more money,” Wade said.

I tend to agree with the Libertarian take on minimum wage laws:

Skilled, experienced workers make high wages because employers compete to hire them. Poorly educated, inexperienced young people can’t get work because minimum wage laws make them too expensive to hire as trainees. Repeal of the minimum wage would allow many young, minority and poor people to work.

It must be asked, if the minimum wage is such a good idea, why not raise it to $200 an hour? Even the most die-hard minimum wage advocate can see there’s something wrong with that proposal.

The only “fair” or “correct” wage is what an employer and employee voluntarily agree upon. We should repeal minimum wage now.

A work relationship is a consensual one between two adults (or a minor old enough to make some decisions with their adult guardian). If an employer wanted to offer $1/day as wages and the employee accepted it, what’s the harm in that? Is it not a fair transaction because the two parties involved both agreed to the terms? According to minimum wage laws, apparently not. But what if the employer couldn’t afford to pay that minimum wage? What are they to do? I guess forgo the employee… that could mean firing an employee you already had, cutting back on their hours, or it could mean you just can’t hire one in the first place. How is that any good for anyone involved?

Maybe there’s someone that is unskilled or a risky hire (e.g. a teenager). It’s an investment to train someone at a job, and once you make that investment you want to keep them. So what if an employer was willing to hire someone at a reduced amount, allow them to be trained, and if they proved their worth, gave them a raise to retain them? Is that not fair? The minimum wage laws make that more expensive to do.

Some say minimum wage is necessary so that bad employers can’t take advantage of employees. How is this so? No one is forcing that employee to take the job in the first place let alone stay there if they did take the job. If the terms of the relationship aren’t satisfactory, they don’t have to take the job. If some people feel they have no other choice but to work for such a low wage, well, perhaps working for some low wage, earning some money (instead of none), gaining some skill (instead of sitting around learning nothing), and hopefully working your way to a better rate of pay and job isn’t a bad thing.

Do I think the minimum wage is a sufficient living wage? No, not really. However if two adults consent to a relationship, why are we to tell them otherwise?

The original article continues:

“We pay more than minimum wage, but we try to pay our people well because we have really good people and we want to keep them so that’s always one of our top expenses — payroll,” [business owner Steve] Wiman said.

You see, he has no law that forces him to pay better. He knows that it’s wise to pay well to retain the people that work for him. This is business forces (free market) at work. He understands how business works and behaves accordingly, no need to have some law force him to “pay better than this amount to retain people.”

Minimum wage laws are one of good intentions that doesn’t work.