Making minimum wage "work"

I recently read a post by a blogger who did a little exercise to see if he could survive on minimum wage. He chose a location of Hartford, CT, and used the state's minimum wage of $7.65. He assumed a forty hour work week, which equaled an income of about $1,224 a month. He then went down his list of expenses and determined that he couldn't survive on minimum wage. His conclusion: Minimum wage doesn't work.

The debate about minimum wage is largely pointless, because there are so few adults who actually are paid minimum wage. But I'll play along and pretend that lots and lots of adults are trying to survive on minimum wage. Is the problem with the wage or the people? I say the people.

First, if you're being paid minimum wage, it means that you have next to no skills and probably no work experience. You're probably unreliable and you probably have a spotty work history. Why should an employer pay for your lack of skills? Minimum wage shouldn't be a goal for anyone. It should be a starting point that can quickly be surpassed if one is willing to show up, work hard, and develop skills. Talk to any business owner, and nine times out of ten, I bet you will find that they'd be happy to pay more than minimum wage if they could find suitable employees.