Minimum wage

Regarding “$15 wage would lift 3.5M Texans,” (A1, Jan. 30) I fail to see how an across the board rise in the minimum wage, inevitably passed on to customers, would cause large numbers of companies to fail. Obviously, retail prices would rise in sectors dominated by low wage workers and on to the general economy through business connections. Would this broad increase in costs be so great that businesses would fail? Would the added spending power of low wage workers not offset losses? Would it not improve public finances? This raise would be a great boon to this relatively small percentage of workers at a small, widely distributed cost to consumers. That increase may well be covered by an increase in spending among these workers and a reduction in the cost of the social safety net. It may even trickle up to a broader rise in wages that would help address the growing imbalance in wealth distribution.

Augusta Era Golian, Spring