Quora Answer: If the Minimum Wage Goes Up to $15 an Hour in Most Places, How Will Skilled Wages be Affected?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “If the minimum wage goes up to $15 an hour in most places, how will other, skilled wages be affected?”

Raising the minimum wage will cause all other wages to rise accordingly.  This will raise the cost of wages for businesses, forcing them to adapt.  One way to adapt would be automation.  Another way would be efforts to increase productivity, since businesses want a return on that increased manpower cost.

Raising the minimum wage is not going to immediately address unemployment and underemployment, but it will lead to growth because this gives people more disposable income, and consumer spending will rise in line with that.  This does not create wealth, so much as redistribute wealth.  This will also increase competition for jobs, which would help raise the standard of professionalism and work.

On the other hand, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, or close to it, cuts cost for the city in terms of the attendant problems of homelessness, welfare for the hungry, health issues and substance abuse.  People need hope.  Massive disenfranchisement has a societal cost.