Often in the debate of whether the minimum wage ought to remain the same or drastically increase to some $10 or $15 per hour, we forget one, better, option: abolish the minimum wage completely. Perhaps now is a good time to focus on this, in light of Wendy's reaction to the legislation passed in California and New York to increase the minimum wage now to $10/hour, increasing it gradually to $15/hour. Wendy's, and probably soon McDonald's as well as most employers with minimum wage employees will find ways to computerize or otherwise do away with their minimum wage employees. Walmarts have had self-checkout kiosk's for a few years now, with its competitors like Target following suit shortly after.
The higher the minimum wage gets, the more self-serving stations will replace minimum wage employees. What else would you expect? Raising the minimum wage will not magically give everyone more money. The managers and higher-ups of companies have to pay the minimum wage employees, and they pay them out of the money the business makes, the same money they pay everyone else with. Suddenly, they have to drastically increase, and soon double, what they're currently paying each employee. Their minimum wage employees are now costing them twice as much while their productivity and profits remain static. They have two options: decrease profits, which in some cases would lead to bankruptcy, or let some people go.
Who will be let go? The owners obviously won't be, not the executives who have years of experience with the companies, the managers probably won't be let go either, because someone has to be in charge of each individual store or restaurant in a chain, and so the only other option is the bottom line, minimum wage employees. But someone needs to do their job - without them there is no business to have. But wait, there's technology. They can let all of them go, not most of them, not some of them but, over time, all of them, and replace them with computers that allow the customer to order the food themselves. And the company can only benefit.
There will be no mistakes in the order because the customer typed it in themselves (there could of course be a mistake in the actual making/preparing of the product but this is inevitable to some extent), they don't have to pay anything besides the initial cost and maintenance of the machine, and then no matter what the minimum wage is their labor costs will not change. But employers want to have people working as the face of their company, not machines, because they are more personable, and are more likely to provide increased sales.
If there is no minimum wage at all, people will likely be paid more, or at least the same, as they are now anyway. Abolishing the minimum wage will force employers to offer competitive hourly wages so that they can get the best workers. If, for example, McDonald's employees are making $6/hour, but Burger King employees are making $10/hour, then Burger King will be flooded with applications, and those who apply at McDonald's will mostly be Burger King rejects. Let capitalism, the most successful economic tool of all time, do its work: abolish the minimum wage.
