Speaking of the minimum wage, Kevin D. Williamson at National Review pointed out that the minimum wage is not $15.00 an hour or whatever but $0.00. I fear that many fast food workers going on strike will find this out at first hand.
One does not have to worship the free market to realize that the value of potential employees to employers is a continuum; i.e., the abilities of people that make them valuable as workers - knowledge, experience, likeability, reliability, "inter-personal skills," etc. - vary on a continuous scale from what some call "unemployable" to superstar level. For fast-food jobs, let's face it, we're talking about the lower end of the scale, but there is no doubt that there is a difference between workers who qualify, according to the market, for $8/hour jobs and $15/hour jobs. In fact, I have read that some new college graduates have had to take jobs in the $15/hour category.
Now consider the situation where the minimum wage is raised to $15 per hour. Workers formerly paid $8/hour will now face competition (if any jobs left at all) with people in the $15/hour level on the scale of ability, including even some with college degrees (if that has any real value, but that's another subject). Another way to put it is that employers will all of a sudden have their choice of potential employees with higher skills - people who are more productive and more reliable - things that justify the higher wage. In fact, it will be a business necessity to get more productivity from workers at the higher wage. The result will be that some workers will wind up at the real minimum wage of $0.00/hour.
