Up against the Wal-Mart

I was pleased to read in my online copy of the New York Times that Chicago City Council has ordered large stores such as Wal-Mart to pay its employees a minimum of $10 per hour by 2010, and simultaneously astonished to learn that the Federal Statutory Minimum Wage has been kept at $5.15 per hour since 1997. That's only 60% of today's Statutory Minimum Wage in the UK, and the UK minimum wage is going to be increased again in October of this year to £5.05 (approx $8.50) per hour for people over 21. Britain's nine-year experience with the introduction of a National Minimum Wage has totally disproved the original assertion by Conservatives and the Business Community that it would close down businesses and lead to unemployment. The opposite has happened.