Bloomberg: Nick Hanauer

Nick Hanauer: Thats right; they want to double the federal minimum wage. Hey, why not swing for the fences? But before you sputter at the chutzpah of this demand, consider the point made by venture capitalist Nick Hanauer in a provocative op-ed for Bloomberg : "If the minimum wage had simply tracked U.S. productivity gains since 1968, it would be $21.72 an hour three times what it is now." , according to Winnipeg Free Press. Whats supposed to matter is how much doubling the wage would add to the price of your Big Mac or Whopper. And, yes, prices would rise, but by how much is currently something of an Internet parlor game. The Huffington Post touted and subsequently disowned an estimate that McDonalds would have to hike prices by 17 per cent to maintain current levels of profitability. An editor for the Columbia Journalism Review picked this apart and instead surmised the price hikes would have to be more in the range of 25 per cent, while an industry think tank pegged them at up to 35 per cent. You might have missed this, if you didnt happen to hit the right fast-food drive-through on the right day in July, but your neighbourhood burger-flippers and assorted labour activists staged one-day strikes in cities across the United States. They called for the right to unionize and for a raise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Hanauer, who also supports a $15 wage floor, is clearly mixed up. We are not supposed to look at this issue from the point of view of the worker. We re consumers first and foremost, right? (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.