The Democrats took control of the House and the Senate today. They’re intent on pushing through part of their progressive agenda quickly — as in the first 100 hours. One piece of that agenda includes raising the minimum wage. Currently, the minimum wage is $5.15 an hour. That works out to about $10,000 a year. That’s not much, but then again, the number of full-time workers actually making minimum wage is quite small. Because the minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 1997, Democrats want to slowly increase the wage to $7.25 an hour. President Bush been sympathetic to this cause, as long as it includes some tax breaks for small businesses who would feel the brunt of the wage hike. Many states have already passed laws raising the minimum wage to considerably more than its current national rate.
George Will argues that the minimum wage should be $0 an hour:

But the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities’ prices. Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly

As someone who actually made minimum wage when it was around $4 an hour, I tend to agree with Will. My problem with the minimum wage is that it’s an artificial control that doesn’t achieve anything. No one can really live on $5.15 an hour. If the purpose of setting a minimum is to ensure some quality of life for that worker, then $10,000 a year is a pretty bad standard. If the government is going to control wages, how about a living wage, as some progressives have argued. Set that wage at $12 an hour, which is roughly $25,000. Again, it’s not a lot of money, but it’s a lot closer to a livable wage in most places than $5.15.

The problem, though, is that setting a wage at that level is going to put a lot of people out of work. Employers will have to cut their payrolls to accommodate such a hike, which means a lot of people who are just scraping by now would making no wages at all.

The only logical solution, to me, would be to abolish the federal minimum wage and allow states to set their own minimums if they wish. Let the market set wages. In the long run, wages will rise and workers will ultimately benefit.