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A minimum wage leads to higher levels of unemployment.

Because a person has to be either working or looking for work to be counted as part of the labor force, an increase in the number of people too discouraged to continue their search for work would reduce the unemployment rate, all else being equal - but not for a positive reason.

Higher productivity enables companies to increase sales without adding workers. Even if job markets tighten and wages rise, corporate profits can continue to climb as long as worker productivity is growing faster than overall wages.

A study of the history of wages back through the years indicates clearly that when the cost-of-living rises appreciably wages have shortly been adjusted upward also.

Economists of a classical bent lay a large part of the decline of employment, and thus lagging output, to a contraction of labour supply.

Statistical studies are all over the lot about the pluses and minuses of raising the minimum wage.

To be sure, faster growth in nominal labor compensation does not necessarily portend higher inflation.

I think it's much more important to keep people in work than have pay rises.

In addition to joblessness, of course, by the working of supply and demand, when you have a larger number of people unemployed, wages do not rise at the normal level, so that we had last year a drop in real wages.

Labor also wants shorter hours and a say in how work shall be done.