Many business owners and executives seem to share the belief that everyone is paid the true value of their work, whether that is $30 million a year or $7.25 an hour. In that vein, they often argue that minimum wage laws set an unnatural price floor that prevents people who would be willing to work for less from doing so, ultimately increasing business expenses and costing millions of jobs. This argument conveniently ignores the human needs for food, shelter, and financial security that leave workers with little choice but to accept poverty wages in a society that does not adequately provide any of these basic needs. Indeed, the U.S. economy largely rewards those same business owners with extraordinary profits garnered directly from the exploitation of desperate low-income individuals and families.
Yet countless studies show that increases to minimum wages have not resulted in massive job losses. While the federal minimum wage…
