"It is not the employer who pays the wages. The employers simply handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages." ----Henry Ford. Henry Ford angered many of his contemporaries among the industrial elite of his time. Because most of them believed that he over-payed his workers. But Ford was a firm believer in paying his workers enough so that they could afford to BUY the product they made. One, it made them far more invested in creating a quality product...and two....it lead to a healthier economy because is workers could buy cars....and other products. Although Karl Marx had SO many wrong ideas about how do fix the problems of (unregulated) capitalism, he was OH-SO-RIGHT when it came to diagnosing the problems that unregulated capitalism creates. Paying workers a sub-living wage is penny-wise and dollar stupid. Because---although the business owner and customer might make more money and save money in the short-term-----they make less money and cost themselves more money in the long-term. You get what you pay for. Employers get employees who do poorer quality work, are less reliable. Have higher absentee rates. Have high turnover rates. Are more likely to have accidents and other problems on the job. Have a more difficult time attracting capable workers. Customers get poorer products. Poorer or non-existent service Wind up with more people consuming tax dollars for social services in an effort to make up the difference between what workers are getting paid, and what they actually need to live off of...... Since the days of minimum wage jobs being occupited many by teenage part-time workers is a thing of the past. Most people working these jobs are adults who are actually trying to LIVE off of these measly wages. ....and fewer people out their able to afford to pay for the goods and services that THEY produce at their own jobs. In fact, you can argue that paying people sub-living wages actually DISINCENTIVIZES them to work. Since, in many cases, you can maintain a better living standard on public assistance than you can working minimum wage jobs. My spending is someone else's income. Their spending is my income. Henry Ford----whatever his other character flaws were-----understood this.