The poor generally are made worse off by MW
bilby: It also discounts the economic growth due to poor people having more money to spend.
Most of the poor have LESS real income because of the higher prices they must pay due to the higher labor cost resulting from higher MW.
^ Someone is terminally confused.
“Most of the poor” DON’T HAVE EMPLOYEES.
Pay attention: bilby's quote was about the "poor people having more money to spend" as consumers. Which is false -- most of them (under higher MW) will have LESS money (adjusted for inflation) because of the higher prices 100% of consumers must pay as a result of higher MW -> higher labor cost -> higher prices to consumers.
But it's also true that most poor do not have employees, and one big reason why is that the cost of business imposed onto them by gov't is exorbitantly high, including the high labor cost (along with excess regulation and taxes easily handled by the rich but crushing for the poor). The Left's labor laws have made it virtually impossible for anyone but the rich (or upper middle-income level) to be able to start a business. There is no reason why Big Gov't should be pricing the middle- and lower-income people out of the market to start a business. What's wrong with a poor person trying to start a business by hiring cheap labor etc.? Why must the Left's Giant Big Gov't Foot stomp down on every poor person to crush any effort they make to compete as an entrepreneur? MW is just one more crushing blow of the Left's hammer to squash the poor from attempting a small business venture.
They would be the RECIPIENTS of that higher labor money, not the payors.
No, many of the poor are unemployed, so they would only pay higher prices while receiving no benefit from the higher MW which would crush them even more, forcing them to pay higher prices at WalMart, as higher prices are an inevitable result of the higher labor cost. But also the middle-income brackets would pay the higher prices. 100% of consumers must pay higher prices as a result of any MW increase.
And even many of the working poor get no pay increase from higher MW, because their job isn't covered by MW, either legally or illegally. The dirty little secret of MW is:
It's not enforced
in many cases. These cases where it's not enforced are both legal (permitted exceptions) and illegal. There's no way to precisely calculate the vast numbers of workers who are simply left out of the MW job category. Maybe they are really "independent contractors" -- whatever the details, there is no way to impose the MW onto their jobs. They continue to be paid at the same low level because there's no way to enforce the law in their cases.
Other workers are
only in theory covered by MW, but the reality is that there are various ways their rate of pay can be adjusted up or down, because there are variables as to how their number of hours is calculated. Some workers know they're marginal and cannot keep their job if their real pay has to increase, so they have to agree to whatever terms and variables are necessary to keep them in that job so that the employer still profits from having them remain in it.
And of course there are numerous low-paid
independent contractors, subject to the whims of the market, including street vendors of one kind or another, and immigrants (legal and illegal) whose only choice is a low-paying job or no job at all, doing gardening or housework and child-care and elder-care and other low-pay work.
Virtually all these workers ignored by MW are better off with no MW being imposed, and they get no higher income when the MW increases, because all they get is higher prices to pay as consumers.
So the official workers who do get a wage increase with higher MW are offset by a huge workforce unaffected by MW other than the negative effect of price increases. When you add all these working poor excluded by MW to all the unemployed poor and also to the disabled poor who can't work, the higher prices to 100% of consumers probably more than offsets the higher wage income to some workers. It's a false slogan and fantasy to say MW benefits "the poor" generally. There is no economic data or science to confirm this Leftist fantasy.
The higher prices caused by their higher wages would be a tiny fraction;
The point is that ALL the poor, 100%, pay higher prices as a result of MW. But a very large percent of the poor get no pay increase as a result of MW, so 100% of these poor are made worse off by MW.
the vast bulk of it would be paid by those who do the vast bulk of consuming, not the poor.
Yes, meaning most is paid by the middle-class. So you're right that the cost of higher MW is overwhelmingly paid by the middle- and lower-classes in the form of higher prices at WalMart etc. So if that's what you want -- i.e., higher prices and thus lower real incomes and lower living standard for the poor and middle-class, you should favor MW increase.
