[DougShrapnel]

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Minimum wage workers are unable to negotiate a "fair" market value for thier labor in a "free" market.

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I think that this is a big part of whether minimum wage laws have merit or not. Propertarian stated sometime ago that most minimum wage workers add $20/hour of value to the businesses they work for. And even if not, in a lot of cases the cost will be shifted to the consumer (which I think most minimum wage advocates don't have a problem with, in fact I think that most people that advocate a miniumu wage would prefer earned income tax credits to those that need it than a raise in the minimum wage, which affects to a large part young people that don't reaaly need it, but see a minmum wage incrase as a second best alternative).

So I think that most proponents of minimum wage laws would have no problems with the letting workers work for OP if the situation was what was actually happening (i.e. lots of jobless people that want to work but can't get a job because businesses don't want to hire them for the minimum wage). There are 15 states or so that currently have higher minimum wages than the federal wage, to my knowledge there has been no study showing that this has had an adverse effect.

[/ QUOTE ]Hey tehox, I pretty much agree with what you posted. I can't verify propertarian's claim. And I can only venture to guess that the 15 or so states all have a higher average salery like california, or are very liberal(like the Pacific NW or some states in the New England area.)