Where the lowest earners are concerned, often migrants, they rarely reach the mininimum wage, are often not aware of their rights. Whether a minimum wage is imposed or not there will always be the desperate who will work for very little. These jobs and workers chutter along under the surface but there are hundreds of thousands sometimes in each economy.

I remember during a recession in the UK, black markets were the norm in many parts of London. Economies are not often based on moral factors.-

Minimum wage is the minimum level of earnings the employers must pay to their employees, determined by govt. legislation. It has two opposing impacts: (a) it negatively impacts small businesses, that often depend on the cheapest labor, (b) but it can help poorest or the poor by ensuring no employer will exploit them. It is paradoxical in its impact because if small businesses cannot survive the minimum wage regulation, very poor may lose jobs, whereas it is supposed to help them get better salaries.

I agree. There are many instances in some countries on Which wage is too low.

However, a sudden and big increase in minimum wage may result to sudden increase in cost of production for firms. Hence, eventually, it might be inflationary.

Так как рост минимальной заработной платы, как правило, не бывает значительным, то этот фактор не стимулирует инфляцию, но позволяет сдерживать уровень бедности стране

I agree

Minimal wage may increase the cost of production in industry. Manager minimize costs by paying little money to workers so to make profits.

Korea is suffering from unexpected reactions of the owers. They fired lots of employees rather than paying them more. Careful policy-making is necessarily required.

Raising the minimum wage would increase family income for many low-wage workers, moving some of them out of poverty. But some jobs for low-wage workers would probably be eliminated and the income of those workers would fall substantially.

agree, In my opinion it can lead to: employers not to increase manpower, or inflationary if they increase manpower

Paul: The United States is unique in the sense that the federal government has a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour that was set in 2009.

However, 29 states (out of 50 states) have set a higher minimum wage than the federal level.

Additionally, some city governments like Seattle, Chicago, and San Francisco have set a higher minimum wage than the state level.

So, we (USA) have three levels of governments, each setting their own minimum wage.

Most people think the different minimum wages are due to the cost of living in each area of the country.

В России регионы тоже имеют право повышать уровень минимальной заработной платы выше уровня федерального минимума и это справедливо.

MINIMUM WAGE is one evidence of poor intervention by the state. The idea of raising the wage so that the workers would be better off with increased purchasing power is incorrect. In many cases where there is a wage increase, the cost of living also increase also follow.

STATE INTERVENTION could be more effective if the statement spends money on re-training and re-tooling the work force so that with increased skills, workers could earn higher wages. By forcing the private sector to pay higher wage because the state is not competent to control the cost of living in the urban centers only shifts the state's responsibility to the business owners. Business owners are forced to carry the state;s welfare cost.

RETRAIN & RETOOL WORKERS for higher workers. If the state is committed to improve the livelihood of the people, it should consider spending money on how to better re-equip, re-train, and re-toll existing force for better skills and earn higher wages. Business owners pays lower wage to certain segment of the population because of low skill level; however, if the skill level is raised, then companies would have to pay high wage for higher skills.