system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is there still a debate about minimum wage when every macroeconomic textbook I have read, class I have taken, and professor I have had has reiterated the same point that most economists do not support the minimum wage?

I am an economics major and I have never been able to decide which side is right. Please, someone explain to me why there is still a debate about this issue when it seems like most economists do not support minimum wage.
gpt
Because most economists are looking purely at the economic benefit of the minimum wage and ignoring any social costs. The market functioning as predicted by most macroeconomic models is dependent on their being a large number of both employers and employees and workers being able to move freely. In reality, there are a lot of areas where only a few large employers dominate (like the coal towns) and there is a huge friction to moving somewhere else, beyond simple cost. When you have a lopsided employer-employee relationship like that, the market will end up with the guys on the low end of the totem pole just barely above starving which most people see as having a negative social cost.

The research in this area (as opposed to just economists running thought experiments) is mixed on what the impact of raising the minimum wage is- there have been quite a few studies that have not found any increase in unemployment corresponding to a minimum wage increase.