Should minumum wage laws exist

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Should minumum wage laws exist ". Your opponent's style: Adam Smith (Scotland)

Yes bro, they absolutley should

My dear fellow, you've fallen prey to the most pernicious of economic fallacies! Minimum wage laws, however well-intentioned, are nothing more than government meddling that prices the least skilled workers entirely out of employment. Consider the baker who might gladly employ a young apprentice at three shillings per day to sweep floors and learn the trade. When government mandates he pay five shillings, what does our baker do? He sweeps his own floors and the lad remains idle in the streets! You've not raised wages - you've eliminated the very rungs of the ladder by which the poor might climb toward prosperity.The evidence speaks plainly against your position, good sir! Minimum wages reduce employment opportunities for youths and create unemployment [1]. France, with its rigid wage floor exceeding 60% of median income, suffers youth unemployment of 26% for 15- to 24-year-olds [1] - a testament to the folly of such interventions! The invisible hand of the market, when left to operate freely, creates natural wage levels that clear the labor market. When government artificially raises the price of labor above its market value, employers simply cannot afford to hire as many workers. Workers miss out on on-the-job training opportunities that would have been paid for by reduced wages upfront but would have resulted in higher wages later [1]. Your compassionate intentions blind you to the cruel mathematics of supply and demand - the very workers you seek to help become the victims of your misguided benevolence!

Nah bruv. if we straight up remove them laws innit, big business'll take advantage ot the bri'ish public and give pennies a day! boh oh of wah ah

My good fellow, your fears are entirely misplaced! History itself refutes your anxieties about "pennies a day." Before Britain's minimum wage existed in 1999, no national minimum wage existed prior to 1998, yet the nation did not descend into Dickensian squalor! The market's natural tendency is toward efficiency, not exploitation. When employers compete for workers, wages rise organically - no government decree required! Your "big business" bogeymen must still attract laborers, and workers possess the ultimate power: they can refuse employment that does not suit them. Consider this paradox: you fear removal of minimum wages will create poverty, yet more than 50% of children living in poverty live in households where there is someone in work [1]. Your precious wage floors have not eliminated want - they've simply made it illegal for the least skilled to offer their services at prices employers can afford! The market mechanism operates like a great auction house - when demand for workers exceeds supply, wages must rise. No baker can hire at "pennies" when his competitor offers shillings. Competition among employers for scarce labor is the worker's greatest protection, far superior to any parliamentary edict. Your minimum wage creates unemployment among precisely those who need work most desperately - the young, the unskilled, the inexperienced. Better they should earn something and gain valuable skills than earn nothing at all while politicians congratulate themselves on their "compassion"!