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One significant problem with high mandated wages is absenteeism. Look at the problems in Sweden. Iron rice bowl work rules, and very high wages. So what happens? Han and Petar are out ice fishing 45% of the time..
Many, many folks (a few of them my friends) make little and live on even less. They only want to make enough to get by.. $15 an hour and your not suddenly giving them a living wage, you are giving them lots of time off!
In today's market, the defference between minimum wage and $15 an hour can be large. Significant differences in the difficulty of the work (ever work in construction, in the summer?) besides skill sets and experience. Why work harder and learn things, when you could just kick back at the easiest job you could find and make the same money??
We need to respect all work, we need to let adults continue their educations and move up the skill latter, we need more "earned income" tax credits to reward work, and we need to think how we pit our least educated against illegal immigrants. (Not too many undocumented lawyers, doctors and Indian Chiefs out there...)
Raising the minimum is a tempting fix, but I am still not sure it would work..
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