> Sub-minimum-wage living becomes legally unviable precisely because low-end prices rise to match the absence of legal sub-minimum-wage incomes - at which point the government becomes obligated to confiscate and redistribute wealth to rescue those who are drowned by the consequences of minimum-wage laws.
Excellent point. The minimum wage creates a need for welfare for the unskilled because it makes it outlaws their jobs and it raises prices on them.
Prices are not set by the cost of production but by supply and demand. In a healthy market the cost increase of a wage minimum cannot affect the prices, it may only make it uneconomical to produce certain goods (but this almost never happens because margins aren't usually that tight). What the minimum wage actually amounts to is wealth redistribution, from the holder of capital to the provider of labor. It doesn't change the amount of goods and services sold, it just affects who is buying them.
Like all social redistribution schemes, it can be good if wealth isn't distributed equally enough for healthy market interaction, and harmful if wealth is distributed too equally for market incentives to exist.
Excellent point. The minimum wage creates a need for welfare for the unskilled because it makes it outlaws their jobs and it raises prices on them.