Would you accept large tax cuts in exchange for a steep minimum wage hike?

[Torie]

Well now you tossed in the idea of more consumer spending increasing demand the the employer's products (yes maybe to some extent, but to the extent the higher wage costs are passed on in higher prices, then demand goes down from that). The math still doesn't work because the profit on sales is not that great in retail. And using big numbers, with most of the input cost the products rather than labor, you make the money involved seem small. And it is true that if wage costs are a low percentage of the cost pie, that you are less sensitive to the wage rates. Anyway, retail tends to be a low profit and cut throat business, with a lot of price competition. And if everyone has to pay higher wages, then (i) you get more pressure to cut employment through say self checkout (appearing more and more in markets), less floor service, no "greeters,"  etc., and then most of the higher wage cost will be passed on in higher prices, so the lowest paid who tend to shop at Walmart a lot, will see a lot of money go in one pocket and out the other.

This is a complex business, but to me it is close to beyond per adventure, as I said before, that a higher minimum wage is an ineffectual and economically distorting and inefficient and employment truncating way to subsidize via law families so poor that they need financial help.  What is in play is the magnitude of all of those negative effects - not that they don't exist.

[barfbag]

I'd love to be a corporation like Google or Microsoft that wouldn't be affected by the higher minimum wage to begin with and would still enjoy having their tax burden reduced to a fraction of what it was.

They would be highly effected. The more products one sells the more consumers will have to pay higher prices in order to make up for lost revenue. Now that people would be paying more for groceries, they may not be able to afford Microsoft items. The next step is for Microsoft to lay people off in order to make up for lost revenue.

[barfbag]

So what I'm reading this as is "vote for me and I'll make sure you make more money." It's called buying votes. Now what is good is that this would allow people to keep more of their own money, but it's already their money to begin with so they should keep it. We should be taxing imported goods rather than companies in our own country. Lowering the corporate tax would bring jobs back from overseas. However, the rate Obama wants the minimum wage to be would do nothing but make people dependent on Obama and the government.

[Indy Texas]

So what I'm reading this as is "vote for me and I'll make sure you make more money." It's called buying votes. Now what is good is that this would allow people to keep more of their own money, but it's already their money to begin with so they should keep it. We should be taxing imported goods rather than companies in our own country. Lowering the corporate tax would bring jobs back from overseas. However, the rate Obama wants the minimum wage to be would do nothing but make people dependent on Obama and the government.

The people who work at Wal Mart for $8 an hour already depend on the government and always will. And their problem is not that their taxes are too high.