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human
CMV: Minimum Wage Should Be Set On A Local Basis- The Federal Minimum is Fine.

Quite often, I'll see liberals advocating for a $15/hour federal minimum wage. Now, I understand these demands. There are many people struggling to support themselves on minimum wage, and they feel this is what's needed at a bare minimum.

However, the cost of living varies heavily by location. For example, the cost of living in New York City is significantly higher than living in some rural town in Kentucky.

While someone may need to earn $15 an hour to support themselves in certain areas, in other areas it's practically overkill.

**Cons of A $15 Federal Minimum Wage:**

-**Discourages businesses from spreading out.** if minimum wage is roughly the same everywhere, then business have little reason to locate themselves in less crowded areas. In fact, they're more likely to want to locate in the city, as that reduces the cost of travel for things like consulting, contract workers, etc.

However, if minimum wage was $10 in some rural town, but $15 in a crowded city, they may choose to base operations in the rural town, because it cuts overhead costs. This creates more jobs and opportunities in the rural town, and helps fight congestion in the crowded city.

-**It's not feasible for small businesses**

A convenience store/fast food restaurant in a crowded city is likely to see more activity than one in the middle of nowhere. Therefore, it's easier to pay $15 an hour to employees working in Chicago than one working in some small town, because of more money coming in.

-**Discourages people from pursuing further education**

College education is expensive, and it often requires loans. At $15 an hour, many people might be making almost as much as a college graduate in some fields. From a purely objective standpoint, it may become a bad decision to pursue a college education, because of opportunity cost reasons:

-By going to college, 4(or more) years that could be spent working are spent learning.

-You accrue a lot of debt in student loans if you can't afford it upfront, and have to pay it off later.

Assuming college costs $30,000 a year for 4 years, that's $120,000. Lost. Working at $15/hour 40 days a week, that's ~$30,000 a year. So by going to college for 4 years, you're down $240,000.

However, it gets worse due to the *time value of money*. Those loans generate interest, and grow even bigger. Additionally, with the money you could have made working, you could invest a portion, making even more.

As a result of an increased federal minimum wage, we would see a reduced amount of people pursuing further education, which isn't good for our economy that is increasingly moving away from basic labor(thanks to automation), and requiring more and more creativity and design.

By raising the minimum wage at the federal level, it will likely have severe effects on the economy by restricting the free market, damage the job market by causing certain locations to be overcrowded with businesses, and have a severe impact on the incentive to pursue skilled careers. Setting the minimum wage at a local level is far more effective, as it's much better tuned to the cost of living, and helps create jobs in areas that aren't as crowded, better spreading the population.
gpt
The federal minimum wage should be set at the average livable wage level for the country (which would be around $10). From there each State, County, and City should set minimum wages in their jurisdictions that meet the livable wage level for that region (which they currently have the authority to do and often do use that authority). 

To paraphrase FDR when he first established the minimum wage, "If a business is unable to pay a living wage it does not deserve to exist in this country". So if raising the minimum wage hurts some businesses and the free market, good. They are bad businesses that should not have existed in the first place if they cannot pay their employees well.