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Minimum Wage Arguments

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The Fight on Minimum Wage Minimum wage. The lowest amount of money regulated by the government in which businesses must pay their employees. Minimum wage is slowly on the rise, with dramatic proposals in the last few months. However the raise in minimum wage could cause great harm to the United States economy. The minimum wage should not be raised because it would increase the price for the consumer, it could harm the small businesses of America, and it could cause millions of minimum wage workers to be laid off. If the minimum wage were to increase, consumers could see a rise in prices in their products. A majority of minimum wage workers are in a high competitive market, where the companies make smaller profit. In order for companies to …show more content…

In order to make a profit off of a product a company must make more than they are spending. So when it comes to spending on wages companies cannot be paying them more than their income. If companies were forced to raise the minimum wage many of them would find themselves laying off workers, especially those of the lower skilled employees. As much as a 3% reduction of low skilled workers can be projected with an increase of 10% in the minimum wage (Negative Effects). An American Apparel store in Los Angeles had to lay off 500 workers because of the recent city increase to $15 an hour (Sherk). This number is shocking, and American Apparel responded saying, they cannot start pay at $15, instead wages should increase as the amount of sales increases. This makes since, for a company cannot spend money they are not receiving. After extensive research and studies, economists have concluded that for every 10% increase in minimum wage, the country could see a 7% decrease in unemployment (Sherk). This could cost the United States over 7 million jobs. The relationship between unemployment and minimum wage can best be seen in American Somoa. Here they are required to have a starting wage of $20. After two years of its implication unemployment rate went from 5% to nearly 36% (Sherk). This shows how minimum wage greatly affects employers, and employees alike, because it causes businesses …show more content…

It has been shown that when employers are required to pay their workers more it will force many to put off hiring, cut back the hours, and even lay off employees, just to keep labor costs down. A brewing company in North Carolina pays all of their 44 employees the minimum wage, but the owner estimates that with an increase in the minimum wage their company would have costs of up $40,000 (Quittner). Since costs would increase, small companies would be trying to find ways to compensate that pay. First they would have to cut back on the number of hours someone works, because they would not be able to keep paying the workers to be at work. It is necessary to balance their intake and outtake on money. In a study at New York University it is shown that the lower rated restaurants easily went out of business with the increase in minimum wage

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A vast majority of individuals started their life with a minimum wage job. It provided entry to the market in order to gain helpful skills as well as knowledge that facilitated them to move up the ladder. However, it consists of a small subsection of the labor force. According to Card and Krueger (2016), putting more money in the pockets of the poor did not help the poor however; it cost them their jobs. The higher minimum wage also had a negative impact on the minority employment mostly due to differences in level of skills and

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1993 Words | 8 Pages

Minimum wage would raise the wages of many workers and increment benefits what disadvantaged workers. An estimated 6.9 million workers would receive an incrementation in their hourly wage if the minimum rage were raised to $10.15 by 2015. Due to the spill over effect the 10.5 million workers earning up to a dollar above minimum wage would withal be liable to benefit from an incrementation. Women are the most astronomically immense group of beneficiaries from a minimum wage increase. Sixty percent of workers who would benefit from an incrementation are women.

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543 Words | 3 Pages

One article that researches job trends from 1938 to 2016 states, “Of the nearly two dozen federal minimum-wage hikes since 1938, total year-over-year employment actually increased 68% of the time” ( “Hanauer”). As our country has progressed, it has shown to decrease in the amount of unemployed citizens. Firms and workers need each other to be

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733 Words | 3 Pages

A minimum wage increase from “$7.25 to $10.10 would result in a loss of 500,000 jobs”. ("The Effects of Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income”) This claim is better because it shows how raising the minimum wage will decrease job growth instead of increasing it. But, the minimum wage should be increased because increasing will also increase economic activity and spur job growth, decrease poverty, and improvements in productivity and economic growth have outpaced increases in the minimum

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2039 Words | 9 Pages

This in turn has also put pressure on middle class workers. With that said, Senator Murray states that she can only imagine what these lower class workers face every day. However, raising the minimum wage could cause employer to cut hours from employee, which will eventually destroy more jobs. These small businesses would be affected because they need to generate enough income to pay for the extra wage and which could cause the employer to pick up more hours.

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670 Words | 3 Pages

Should Federal Minimum Wage be $15 an hour? The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 states that workers will be given a livable wage. By definition, a living wage is the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet basic needs. In the words of congress, it is “the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being.”

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579 Words | 3 Pages

Minimum wage is a salary cap that hourly pay can not go below. The discussion of this topic is if it should be raised or kept the same. Minimum wage should be kept the same because people would lose their jobs, and as a result of raising minimum wage other products would go up as a result of this (“History” 1). One result of raising minimum wage is that people would lose jobs. This reason is pretty self explanatory, less jobs less income.

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775 Words | 4 Pages

Employees as well as employers and consumers will be affected by a jump in minimum wage. An article that highlights the flaws of the “Fight for Fifteen Movement” states, “The bandwagon for a $15-per-hour minimum wage has run head-on into the laws of economics. It’s pretty much totaled” (Kreutzer 2018). This illustrates the point that the laws of economics, as we read in our textbooks, will not allow the desired results that many believe a minimum wage hike will produce. While wages will increase for hourly workers, the hours they work may be cut as a result.

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810 Words | 4 Pages

The minimum wage was initially established to reduce poverty. Instituting a lowest pay level permitted in the United States guarantees that individuals are paid reasonably for their work and protects younger workers and minorities from being paid less than others. The current United States federal minimum wage is $7.25 a hour, and many argue that with increasing living expenses, the federal minimum wage should be raised, however, increasing base salaries can lead to inflation, fewer worker benefits and increased unemployment. Raising the minimum wage may allow employment to decrease across the country and can even result in fewer jobs for Americans. Businesses must pay their minimum wage employees the required pay and if increased, some

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693 Words | 3 Pages

Most employers believe that people with the lowest skills cannot justify the $15 minimum wage, and therefore cut hours or jobs to balance out the increase in wages. A survey taken last year showed that a 10% increase would increase unemployment by 3% in SRAS and even greater increase in unemployment in LRAS. Because most employers, especially those who own small businesses do not consider the basic skills to be worth $15, they may prefer to invest in machinery to replace people to complete menial tasks such as cleaning and manufacturing. An article from Washington Post stated as proponents of increased minimum wage increases, many restraunts are already looking for ways to remove people from jobs, threatening increased unemployment

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551 Words | 3 Pages

Minimum wage is set so that it forces businesses to have a lowest hourly pay and no one is cheated out of their money. Right now it is a hot topic in San Diego as well as Seattle because it is so expensive to live their, that people are not even getting by with the minimum wage now. It affects many residents in San Diego and Seattle because they have many retail and fast food franchises and their lives could be changed dramatically if these businesses choose to raise their wages. San Diego has just raised their wage from eight dollars to nine dollars and they are still thinking about raising it to ten dollars in two thousand sixteen. Also the city of Seattle has changed their minimum wage to fifteen dollars, which is the nation's highest.

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1153 Words | 5 Pages

Introduction More numbers of state are joining to take action to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour in a few years even though there is a high disputing controversial all over the nation. The federal has set the minimum wage level to $7.25 on Jan. 1, 2015. In less than a year the index number of the minimum wage is going up automatically with cost of living. And eventually it will be likely to increase year by year with automatic and expectation index.

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1651 Words | 7 Pages

However, other politicians and economists’ dispute that raising the minimum wage would decrease job opportunities for unskilled workers. By raising the minimum wage, it will force companies to make decisions about which workers are the most valuable due to their now limited funding. Employer’s verdict can result in less skilled workers losing their jobs, this shift in the job market can arguably ruin the current state of the economy and have a detrimental effect on employment. There are so many questions and uncertainty surrounding minimum wage that many economists have begun looking at ways to study past and present data to determine how the minimum wage affects an

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750 Words | 3 Pages

Back in the 1990 economist wisdom was that increasing minimum wage would destroy jobs, but since 1995 new studies have discovered different results. According to Krueger the chief economist of the United States, stated, “much of the existing literature was flawed”. (Maniing). It seems

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1028 Words | 5 Pages

Paying people a monumental $15 dollars per hour for a minimum wage job will cause an economic crash in the United States of America. thefreedictionary.com, defines minimum wage as “the minimum hourly rate of compensation for labor, as established by federal statute and required for employers engaged in businesses that affect interstate commerce.” This essay is being written to better define minimum wage, and how it differs from common misconceptions. Minimum wage affects every single American employee and employer in one way or another. Some people earn minimum wage, and others have their wages set relative to the minimum wage.

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