Magical Thinking about Minimum Wages

Live within your means, and things wouldn't be hand to mouth.

We are trapped in a never ending cycle of diminishing returns because the government is forever attempting to fix problems that it created.

There are a few issues with this article from the economic analysis perspective. First, we are seeing the short run effects of a price shock. While you won't learn about this is ECON 201, you would in ECON 3XX where the exogenous shock has a dramatic short run effect. Basically, people are reactionary and employers are as well. The general market demand for labor may give way to more capital investment, but the long run effect is the development of new jobs elsewhere when a steady state equilibrium is realized again. The steady state equilibrium is the new limit of quantity demand for labor as the total revenue functions for certain industries will increase with mew players spending more money in the economy, even with the frictional unemployment. One of the primary ideas behind the price floor for the labor market was to reset wages to coincide with inflation, which should normally have a short run leading relationship nut has fallen apart in the last decade.

This article seems more politically charged than an economoc analysis and the tools from an introductory economics course will paint an oversimplified, short sighted picture. There can be an informed discussion on whether the short run sacrifice is worth the long run push, however.