A new report shows minimum wage increases have had little effect on the number of jobs in Maryland and nationwide. While the rhetoric around increasing the minimum wage often comes with the caution it will reduce low-wage employment, a new review of decades of research showed most studies found no job losses after the state or local minimum wage is raised. Ben Zipperer, senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute and the review's co-author, said raising the minimum wage has unquestionably benefited workers. ...
What follows is incorrect
It’s a price floor, which creates a deadweight loss.
Since we’re also consumers, it’s a net loss.
Tbf, economics has to presume inequality to be non existent. If they dont, inequality is the overriding factor that makes all the other forces at play pale in comparison. So, they remove inequality.
Again, tbf, in a world with no inequality, where only the very best and brightest rise to the top and not just a endless stream of nepo babies, with whole institutions in place to ensure a lack of social mobility, a national minimum wage would be a bad idea. Just like tax breaks for the rich would fix any problem you had, in that fake - made up world that could never exist.
But, as you allude to, in the real world, things are very different.
Should it not just be integrated in to the supply cost?
Yes, but how exactly that distorts the market is counterintuitive.
How so?
Intuitive chalkboard economics lead to the net loss conclusion above. Experimental reality as described in the study says otherwise.