With all due respect to several letter writers who have expressed their support for an increase in the minimum wage, I must disagree with that opinion, as facts do not support their positions.
In countries where minimum wage laws exist, the unemployment rate is nearly always higher than those with no such laws. For example, Switzerland, which has no minimum wage law and has an unemployment rate of 2.1 per cent, as recently reported in the Economist magazine.
One simple economic principle is that people tend to buy more if the price is low, and less if the price is higher. But somehow, people who advocate for higher minimum wages think that the government can raise the price of labour without reducing the amount of labour that can be hired.
A very simple example follows: let’s say I own a business that employs three people at $10 an hour. If I am forced to pay $15 an hour, I will probably, either lay off one person in order to maintain my labour costs; cut everyone’s hours in order to do the same; or increase the costs of my goods or services.
Wages, like so many other things, are best left to the law of supply and demand.
Steve Knobbe, St. Albert
