I just read an article by Rusty Tanton on the minimum wage where he mentions a letter signed by 650 economists that endorse an increase of the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour:

According to a widely-discussed University of Georgia Survey Research Center survey, 89.7 percent of Georgians (i.e. The Market) support an increase in the minimum wage.

State Sen. Robert Brown (D-Macon) has responded to market forces and will introduce legislation to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour in next year's Legislative session.

And yet, the socialist Republican majority appears poised to step in and deny the free market the wage increase it demands.

"I personally don't support it. You start eliminating part-time jobs for young people when you raise it," House Majority Leader Jerry Keen told the Augusta Chronicle.

Setting aside the belief of 650 economists that Keen's statement is hogwash, I have to ask: Rep. Keen, who are you to deny the market what it demands?

On the 650 economists, this is what Cafe Hayek wrote about that a few months ago:

What were they thinking? Little or no effect on employment? How can you sign your name to something like that and call yourself an economist? I guess you could argue that there's little effect on TOTAL employment. That effect is very hard to find empirically because so few workers are affected by the minimum wage and its impact gets swamped by other factors. But among low-skilled workers, the ones we want to help? Maybe the people who signed believe that "modest" increases in the federal minimum wage (to $7.25) would effect so few people (many of whom are already covered by state minimum wage laws), that the effect is mainly symbolic. So signing a petition is more of a political statement than a statement about economic reality.

It wouldn't bother me if they petitioned for social programs that would help workers who lose their jobs due to an increase in the minimum wage. You can be in favor of that and still be a first-rate economist—you believe that the benefits of increasing the minimum outweigh the harm and you'd like to mitigate the harm. But to argue that there's no harm, that there's a free lunch because the demand curve for low-skilled labor is vertical? How do you defend that?

You have no right to a job. You have no right to a minimum wage...and you have no right to use government to force another person to live for you. End of story.