Since no one is gonna post any scholarly info on deservedness in a labor market,

First of all, let's start by defining my stance, so the rest of us aren't strawman'ing it up in here trying to defeat the big bad liberal in the room. I realize within the active dialogue, workers are demanding a living wage increase of $7. I'm going to assume this is the impetus to a discussion on minimum wage increases, and that the number "$15" is an arbitrary number used to evoke a response or initiate a dialogue. So the question becomes Should minimum wage be raised?

We can look at the history of minimum wage in the US, adjusted m for inflation, and see that productivity and inflation have outpaced minimum wage.
which Is less than 40% of average production wage.

The neoclassical model of economics says that raising the price floor (minimum wages) above the equilibrium wage (what typical market forces dictate wages should be and have leveled off at) should create unemployment, but this model is typically based on simple supply and demand curves, and often overlooks other complicating factors, for example, the monopsony that exists in the labor market, or that the buyers (employers) have more market power than the sellers (employees).

We can use a graph like this one to plot labor supply and labor demand against wage equilibriums and binding minimum wage



A number of economists have accepted the theory (read: explanation, not "guess") that increases in minimum wage have little to no negative effect on employment. Kruger and Card did some extensive research on the subject

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

Furthermore, these economists have adopted the theory that minimum wages have an overall positive effect on poverty. Here's a study by Addison and Blackburn describing the "poverty-reducing" effect of minimum wages.

http://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/104...5/1/dp4298.pdf

Am I for raising the minimum wage? Yes and no. I like the case David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute makes for raising it to $10 an hour, in incremental increases (like what's been done almost every time minimum wage has been increased.

Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 Would Lift Wages for Millions and Provide a Modest Economic Boost | Economic Policy Institute

But I believe, even with EITC supplementing minimum wage, we can do better as a society to lift poverty and provide an economic benefit at the same time and ease the burden from employers.

Anyone care to refute. Please make sure you bring "sound evidence", or am I going to have to treat all subsequent posts as garbage in/garbage out and give a philosophical lesson in source credibility?