Does the minimum wage cause long work hours?
People today work longer hours than was common in the past.
My thought is that the minimum wage, by discouraging the hiring of more workers at a lower wage, encourages employers to ask for more hours from less workers to do the same work.
Am I completely off? Is there evidence to support this? Would removing the minimum wage regulations cause work weeks to be shorter?
I tend to agree; it also requires those workers do more work per hour.
Edit: I’m going to revise that. Having fewer workers working more hours doesn’t save employers any money. Minimum wage does, however, force those workers to do more work.
In Ohio, you are only allowed to work 40 hours a week. If you work more than that it counts as over-time, and you are to be paid time and a half. There are certainly many problems with minimum wage laws, and they are all just another display of the states anti-capitalist/anit-freedom beliefs, however I do not believe that people work longer hours as a result from minimum wage laws. Instead, I think workers are often not allowed to work as long as they want because businesses do not want to be forced to pay them time and a half. Just my opinion on the topic.
Minimum wage is a floor in the price of the labor hourly. I guess other labor regulation could have an effect though. In a lot of European countries, labor regulations make it very hard to fire someone, so you also are very cautious when hiring someone.
Anyway, I think the main culprit is the tax code and some other regulation that adds overhead per each worker you have. I’m not very versed on this labor division topic, so I will let someone else carry on this thought line. 
(It should be said though, that there are more and more part-time jobs, and also jobs to work from home which save you at least commute time. I also suspect a lot of self-employed people do it to have some versatility on the workload.)
The thought process is there, but I don’t think the theory is correct. Take a look a McDonalds for example. If a 16 year old works for minimum wage, and puts in his/her 40 hours, the chances are that McD will not let them work any more because of overtime and maybe child labor laws. Now take a stock investor earning commissions on sales. He/she may work 90 hrs a week beacuse they want more customers, more money, and maybe they just flat out love their job. The person at min wage works less than the broker. The example can be made for union work also when overtime is paid, therefore making someone want to work loger hours. My theory is that people must work longer hours to pay for the same goods because of inflation. If a loaf of bread still cost .25 then maybe we wouldn’t have to work longer hours to make more worthless money.
According to the United States Department of Labor, the situation in which commissions are earned is different. If the commisions earned by the investor account for more than half of his total earnings for a given period and the investors normal hourly wage is greater than time and a half (10.50) , the investor is exempt from recieving overtime pay. Therefore, he could work his 90 hour week and not be paid overtime for it. Also, the topic that I was reffering to was in general, Does minimum wage cause people to work longer hours, and I said no, the opposite occurs because businesses dont want to be forced to pay employees 150% more money for working longer. I am sure the employers would not mind paying their workers the same wage rate for working overtime, but that is against the law.
“People today work longer hours than was common in the past.”
Where did you get that info from? 70 hours a week was considered an easy week in the thirties.
Good point, I agree.
" Instead, I think workers are often not allowed to work as long as they want because businesses do not want to be forced to pay them time and a half."
Often they actually do (here in the UK), but even with that the total overtime is limited by the state and yes, workers often would want to work more. This is often true of the blue collars, who simply want to make more money, but actually it is sometimes true for the white collars too. I’m a software developer and generally I’m “lion-type” guy: big effort, big rest, rather than sustained effort. I’d rather work day and night for a month and then take the next month off than to work 9-5. I never really understood why no employer offers this to me until I realized that they are not allowed to offer it because overtime regulations are per month.
I think the minimum wage causes shorter working hours. By the law of demand, less work is demanded by employers if the price of the work is higher.
Minimum wage decreases the hours of labor demanded. If you artifically make a good more expensive then you artifically reduce the amount of that good demanded. This has two effects: Employeers go without the labor when there is a laborer ready to provide it AND Employeers find substitutes for minimum wage labor like higher wage labor and automation. That is why government who hates poor folks loves minmum wage as employeers substitute higher skill labor and equipment for lower skill labor.
I agree, that is what I was trying to say in an earlier post. Nice wording by the way. Haha [Y]
My initial thought was in regard to white-collar work. Could it have a different effect on salaried workers vs. hourly? You would work less as an hourly worker, as the more you work, the more you cost. However with salaried positions, you don’t cost any more when you work long hours, so there might be a tendency to “get your money’s worth” on the part of the employer.
Yes, I agree. The effect would be different on salaried workers, because they dont get paid for overtime. MIninumum wage laws dont really effect salaried workers, so they may or may not work longer hours than they used to. But if they do work longer hours, it has nothing to do with minimum wage laws and labor regulation.