Austrian economist Peter Schiff played Devil’s Advocate and stood outside Walmart for a day, drawing attention to the low wage debate occurring on the national stage. Schiff asked regular shoppers to contribute fifteen percent on top of the price they paid for their purchases in order to fund the new demands on part of Walmart workers to pay a new $15/hour wage. Most, despite preferring workers to get paid more, would not want to shell out the cash for higher prices on their goods, even if it meant their money would help pay to support the Walmart workers.

The logic behind this is that if businesses are to pay workers higher wages, in order to minimize profit loss from expenses, the business would end up raising their prices on their goods. The video is obviously edited and structured to support the views of the creators, but the people said what they said; I’d rather keep my low prices, thanks very much.

The main point Schiff was trying to make is that by supporting a drastic increase in wages, the unintended consequence is higher prices in order to fund these pricey new demands.

Of course we all want workers to get paid more, if we’re not the ones who have to subsidize it. If labor is priced higher than it should be, there will be repercussions, so says Schiff.