re: OT- Let your state reps know how you feel

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A Big Mac combo meal in San Fran and Seattle are priced at around $10-$11.

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I've never been up that way, but that sounds reasonable.

I pay around $9 for a burger meal at Hardee's here in NC. And then I dispose of the garbage and tell no one.

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The cost of a Big Mac in San Francisco isn't $3.99. It is between $6 and $7.

A Big Mac combo meal in San Fran and Seattle is priced at around $10-$11.

According to the Big Mac Index the average Big Mac price in the US is $5.51.

Big Mac Index

So your wonderful analysis falls apart based on that.

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He's running back to DU to get his rebuttal. He'll be back tonight.

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Minimum wage has failed to even keep up with inflation over the past four decades

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Would you rather they not work at all and sit on their arse?

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This is the flaw in the logic.

There's this idea that people currently getting around ~$10/hr in assistance will magically get off their arse and work for an additional difference of ~$5 an hour ($10+$5). I assure you, they won't. I wouldn't either.

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Let's just put this to bed right now.

Minimum wage in San Francisco: 15.59
Cost of a Big Mac: 3.99
Cost of a Big Mac Meal delivered (Door Dash): 11.59

Minimum Wage in Atlanta: 7.25 (Federal Wage)
Cost of a Big Mac: 3.99
Cost of a Big Mac Meal delivered (Door Dash): 9.49

Chances that those San Fran franchises are operating at a loss for no reason: ZERO

Annual Wage increase from $9/hr to 15/hr: $14,500

That's money spent on cars, movies, food, Christmas gifts, etc. It's also money not paid in WIC and other welfare programs, which all subsidize low wage employers. It's organic stimulus directly towards those most likely to spend, which even the most basic economic education tells you drives the economy (and with that the earnings of almost every business) much more than any tax cut or government spending program.

PLUS it lowers the deficit without raising taxes while organically cutting entitlements.

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Here is what really will happen by raising the minimum wage to $15.

Final cost of your Big Mac Combo will rise(just like prices in San Francisco and Seattle rose). But we aren't in San Francisco we are here in Georgia. I, myself, will not pay $10 for a Big Mac meal in here in South Georgia. McDonalds sales suffer. With sales down lay offs must occur just for the business to stay afloat. So the person who you gloated would receive a $14,500 increase in wages would actually get nothing, zero, nada because they don't have a job. Then the jobless must apply for Government help like food stamps because they just lost their job. It is a vicious cycle.

Some areas might be able to cope with $15, but a lot of areas can not. It will cause job loss and loss of investment. Let the states decide based on the markets inside those states. The Federal push for a $15 minimum wage is stupid.

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We weren't putting away some concept of what is right and wrong from a moral perspective. We were talking about whether a $15 minimum wage means a $17 burger, and it doesn't.

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Then why not make it a $16 minimum wage? And if $16 is good, why not $17, 18? Just make it $20.

If you believe it will pay for itself by bringing millions off assistance, if you believe it will pay for itself in stimulated economy (these wage earners put this money right back into the economy you said), then why not make it $20, or $25/hr?

Imagine how prosperous this country would be if the minimum wage was $100 an hour.

Wages in a market economy are determined by supply and demand for skilled labor. Yes, you can set an arbitrary minimum wage but it will have little effect on what an employer is willing to pay employees in order to make a profit unless the minimum wage is too high for reasonable profitability.
Perhaps the rich in California are willing to pay high prices for a hamburger but not here in Georgia where the cost of living is much lower. It's all relative and I would much rather buy a nice 4 bedroom 3 bath home for 250k in a non-lucrative area in Georgia compared to a million bucks for 2 bedroom 1 bath dinky home in San Francisco.
Fast food businesses here would either go out of business or automate eliminating those minimum wage jobs at 15 bucks an hour.

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Wages in a market economy are determined by supply and demand for skilled labor. Yes, you can set an arbitrary minimum wage but it will have little effect on what an employer is willing to pay employees in order to make a profit unless the minimum wage is too high for reasonable profitability.

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I know that sounds logical, but it's factually not true. Employers pay based on the job market more than they do on the actual productivity an employee generates, and the market will almost always settle on a wage much lower than profits would dictate.

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Perhaps the rich in California are willing to pay high prices for a hamburger but not here in Georgia where the cost of living is much lower.

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We already have prices for a burger in San Fran vs Atlanta. The difference is less than $1. It tells you a lot of what you need to know about profitability and pay scale. Why do folks continue to make this argument when 3 phone calls has already thrown it out the window?

Further an increased wage floor increases all wages. It moves both supply and demand curves to the right rippling up through all industries. If you make $25/hr a higher minimum wage gives you a raise as well.

My friend owns a port container trucking company that guarantees drivers to be home at night and weekends and guarantees them $1200 week. He can't hire enough workers.Why won't the kid that's making $8 hr at McDonald's work for him?

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Because your argument hasn't been made.
Surely you aren't suggesting that the cost of living in the state of Georgia as a whole is represented by Atlanta and is nowhere near comparable to California as a whole. Minimum wage is set by set by states and it will never be reasonable for Georgia to have the same minimum wage as California.

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I'm saying the inflation people are expecting is overblown. The fact that people continue to make the burger argument makes me think it's one of those things that's been said so much that it's now just believed even though the data shows it's not true at all.