Originally posted by karnachz
I'm guessing your comment was probably sarcastic, but just in case it wasn't, unemployment was lower and GDP growth higher during the New Deal era, when the purchasing power of the minimum wage was at its peak. Nike would rather pay third world workers 8c per pair of shoes, but that's because they're greedy, narcissistic and heartless, and not because it wo ...[text shortened]... DP growth was better than it has been during the Southern Strategy (i.e. Nixon-Reagan-Bush) era.
Apples and oranges. You can't choose minute characteristics of the economy to compare between eras unless you control for everything else.
In any case, interestingly, though you lashed out at me for saying it, you answered your own question a few lines later. The very fact that jobs can be outsourced is what prevents minimum wages from being effective. If Nike can pay some guy in China $0.50, it's less likely to pay an American $12 for the same work.
you want to call it greedy and heartless? Fine (though I have no idea what narcissism has to do with it). But it's a reality. Unless you're going to pass some anti-globalization measures, your labor has to be competitive with that which other people are willing to do or employers will not purchase it.
I have no problem with raising the top marginal tax brackets, but that has very little to do with this issue.