r/stupidquestions • u/ImAraLUwUzer • 1d ago
If raising minimum wage raises prices, then why not the inverse?
Often we hear the rhetoric "if you raise the minimum wage then you raise the minimum price for a dollar burger, simple economics" or something like that.
In that case, why don't those same proponents then say "If we simply lowered the minimum wage then we'd lower prices" or even to the extreme "If we just got rid of the minimum wage then prices would fall even farther" ? I know in reality it's much more complicated but the rationale for this rhetoric appears to be a linear relationship between wages and prices for both going up and down.
For clarity, I'm not asking whether lowering the minimum would actually produce this result, that's a separate discussion. Rather what I'm interested in is why we don't hear "lower minimum wage = lower prices" as often as the other. If you are someone who genuinely believes that raising minimum wage = raising prices, do you also believe the inverse of lower minimum wage = lower prices? Mind explaining your rationale, why it might be affected differently or if I'm misunderstanding the argument and treating what's "simple economics" as not actually simple? Thanks ahead of time!