MORE THOUGHTS ON MINIMUM WAGE & INEQUALITY

Almost two years ago the National Employment Law Project (NELP) produced a study that showed how both minimum wage and the purchasing power of each dollar have lagged behind rising costs. The result is that individual lives have suffered as the average American is now working more for less, while debt loads and inequality levels have soared.

It's that simple.

One of the more important stories in the NELP study is the finding that 7 out of the top 10 growth occupations over the next decade will be in low-wage industries (which is fodder for those who see America in a race to the bottom).

Another key NELP finding is that the vast majority of low wage employees (66 percent) work for large corporations, or firms with more than 100 employees. What this means is that America's largest companies, rather than "mom and pop" stores, would be affected most by an increase in the minimum wage.

The question is how much would the big firms be affected by raising the minimum wage to, say, $15 an hour? There's a lot of debate here.

There's little doubt that there's been some confusion as to how raising the minimum wage would impact the largest firms in America who depend on low-wage labor. There are many sources that use conflicting methods to reaching a conclusion (as this, this, and this Forbes piece demonstrate). This helps explain why the picture posted above probably understates by $4 billion what McDonalds' executives and shareholders would have to give up from the pay and dividend pool if McDonald's raised the minimum wage to $15 per hour (this assumes McDonald's doesn't raise prices to pay for the wage hikes). The original poster was probably cherry picking the information.

Still, there's also no doubt from the information out there that one of the ways to slow down the growing gaps between the working poor and America's richest class is to raise the minimum wage by at least $3-4 an hour.

In my view this is something that needs to happen, especially since wages have not kept pace with what workers have been producing over the past 40 years.

The real key, as Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose have shown, is recognizing that raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour would not be followed by the collapse of Western Civilization.

- Mark