The minimum wage is currently a hotly debated policy area, and is frequently talked about on the news and in political spheres. Part of the reason why this debate gets so heated is that, according to Antony Davies, a Senior Affiliated Scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and associate professor of economics at Duquesne University, both those arguing in favor and against the minimum wage are trying to help the poor, and therefore assume that anyone disagreeing with them are trying to harm the poor. It is for these reasons that in articles and research papers Davies uses reason and empirical arguments to apply economic theory to the minimum wage debate. The minimum wage debate is centered around whether employers should be forced to pay all employees a minimum hourly rate for their time, and whether this rate should be raised to the level of a “living wage”. Although the term “living wage” is not clearly defined by advocates, it is loosely a wage sufficient to satisfy one’s basic needs including housing, education, food, and healthcare. The main arguments for this living wage are that it is our moral duty to stop the exploitation of workers by their employers who can force them to work long hours in horrible conditions for little pay, and that society will reap benefits if the poor are better able to take care of themselves due to their higher wages. The arguments against (increasing) the minimum wage are that as things get more expensive we demand less