...can be felt in the smallest towns and the smallest fast-food joints:
"The new federal minimum wage is being felt by some Indiana workers, who are cashing slightly bigger paychecks since the 70-cent per hour increase took effect. Sarah Alden, 16, and Ashley Heiney, 14, said the wage hike had shown up in their paychecks at Frazier's Dairy Maid, where they're working part-time serving up ice cream treats.....The shop's owner, Brian Frazier, said the wage increase was clearly a win for workers, but he expects it will lead to higher prices, and not just for Frazier's popular turtle sundaes. He also expects that big retailers will be reacting to higher supply costs. "We can't take the full brunt of the increase," Frazier said. "It's kind of getting to the point where everything keeps going up and up and up."
Fundamental: one of the problems with government intervention is that it leads to unexpected (and often negative) consequences elsewhere in the economy, consequences that the do-gooders never anticipate. If you've never done so, read some of the works of conservative/libertarian author Friedrich von Hayek--this is one of the points he began driving home as early as the 1940s.
