These are all the same arguments we always hear. "The government spends a lot on the military" - yeah, I don't like that either, even though I recognise the importance of that kind of spending. Spend less and lower the deficit, or better yet, lower taxes. "Big Mac's abroad are only 20c more expensive, that's not much!" - again, left-wingers being poor with numbers. That's a 10% increase in price of goods, and we're talking about one specific product in one specific company. If the price of bread went up by 10%, restaurants, caterers etc. would have a *big problem* on their hands because their baked goods expenses just went up by 10%, and that necessarily means cutting their expenses elsewhere or an increase of prices for customers. Now imagine if it was steel, or some other key resource used in more expensive goods, and that 20c can scale up right quick. It's all the same regurgitated pulp that's always pulled out of the hat whenever the subject rears its head. The system of sudden increases of minimum wage is stupid, it shocks the economy every single time. *If* I'm supposed to accept minimum wage as something that's not set arbitrarily using a random number that looks good on a slogan, it has to be pegged to something so that it's constantly mobile without the need of additional legislation. Want a systemic solution? Make one. Propose a sensible system and stop touching it. Peg it to the GDP, peg it to exchange rates, peg it to relative living costs, but don't just write a cute slogan that demands the entire economy raises the minimum wage by nearly 100% overnight. It should be dynamic, or revisited annualy, or a staggered roll-out to allow for adjustment over time. There's *zero* economic sense in doing this the way the U.S. does.