Minimum wage laws make life better for those workers whose jobs cannot be exported or replaced by machine but worse for those whose jobs disappear. Sadly, the welfare state’s gunpoint “altruism” is often better than the minimum wage so marginal workers often face a nearly 100% de-facto “tax” rate when their wages get matched by cuts in (unconstitutional) government “aid”.

I will caution that one should distinguish between the “commercial” sector (e.g. products sold to willing buyers at Costco) and the “private” sector because 30% or more of the “private” sector consists of the Blackwaters, Lockheed Martins, and other “government contractors” that suck off the taxpayer udder.

Saddest, watching the two dominant socialist parties (the leftist secular “workers” Democrats vs. the rightist religious “corporatist” Republicans) discussing the economy makes me want to vomit. Their differences are 99% stylistic and 1% substantive but it fools the voters everytime.