There are certain things you already can NOT do to your employees – such as beating them, stripping them naked or locking them into the workplace, etc.

You could say, someone doesn’t have to take a job, if it doesn’t pay enough to live on. But answer this – why doesn’t that apply to an employer that wants his employees to work naked ? Because some conditions are MORALLY unacceptable.

In feudal times, the village peasants worked for the lord of the manner 6 days a week in his fields, tending the crops. On the seventh day, they didn’t rest, they went to the communal open strip fields to grow their own crops, to live on. What caused the most turmoil & got the lord of the manor in trouble, was when he took away the Sundays.

Today, when you take away the employees opportunity to support themselves in other ways, you take on some responsibilities similar to the lord of the manor. If you are going to offer a full time job, it has to provide enough to live on.

Yes. This will impact product & service costs. Amazing how many times in America, people’s morality is limited by what it costs them.

Few wish to see a business fail. Yet, if the business has an inefficient work/employee ratio, requiring a great number of people at a lower than current market wages, the business is not truly viable. Some business needs to be purged. $20k annual is poverty for all practical purposes.
Business will adjust, improvements will come. The people cutting the checks simply do not want to take home less, wanting to retain all they can in order to meet their life goals. Low wage business is business made on the backs of other’s, no American pride in this, ugly.

Do you believe the US President has the power to pass laws? If so, then you might want to read up on the respective powers of the President and Congress.
As it currently stands, Obama’s ‘paladin of peanuts’ has little chance of passing the Republican controlled House.

“This comes after more than a year of nationwide organizing and activist demonstrations in support of a $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers. In Sea-Tac, Washington, the $15 minimum wage was passed, but a court ruling restricted its application–there’s still work to be done. We need that minimum to apply everywhere…”
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Introducing a DOA bill to Congress requiring a $15 minimum wage, would ensure no change to the current law for the foreseeable future.

Idealistic rhetoric does not help the working poor.

That’s a cute little trick there, trying to pretend that the lack of a minimum wage is responsible for the low unemployment in Switzerland, or higher unemployment in some areas of the United States.

Of course you haven’t bothered to mention that Switzerland and other countries that don’t have a minimum wage don’t have one because their labor unions and collective bargaining agreements contain minimum compensation clauses, so it’s not needed.

They’re also not as bad as the United States when it comes to their CEO pay compared to the lowest paid Swiss citizens, but somehow I doubt you would be calling for the United States to follow their lead there.