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Minimum Wage Thesis

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Minimum Wage The minimum wage is known as the lowest wage a worker can be paid, according to rules set either by the local, state, or federal government. Since 1997, the minimum wage has been set as $7.25 per hour of work. However, this does not mean that some companies and/or businesses have been paying their workers more than what is set as the required pay. As simple as it may sound, the topic of minimum wage raises much controversy throughout the nation. Those in and out of the labor force argue that the minimum wage is not sustainable to live off of and may actually have more negative side effects on workers’ mental health. But, if the minimum wage were to be raised to the $15 per hour, or increased at all, that many laborers are arguing …show more content…

Many minimum wage jobs can be easily replaced by a simple robot, kiosk, or even basic computer. For example, garbage trucks used to have two men on it at all times. One man would drive, the other would get out, pick up the can, dump it, and hop back in. Nowadays, there is one garbage man per truck; just the driver… A lift was created on the truck so it could just pick up the can, dump it, and go. That simple add-on to the garbage truck eliminated the need for one worker per garbage truck eliminating half of the workers. And, since picking up trash does not take as long anymore due to the lift, they do not need as many workers as they used to have for that reason as well. If it is that easy to take half the jobs away from garbage men who do not make minimum wage, imagine how easy it would be to replace those who do make minimum wage with some kind of technology. The rise in minimum wage, big or small, will cause companies to begin to eliminate jobs for more reliable and consistent technology that is significantly less expensive than paying their workers at the newly set minimum wage. Technology is making it easy to eliminate jobs completely. Such as the garbage men, minimum wage paying companies cutting workers due to technology may lead to larger, more skill-based company jobs to be cut as well. They will see what these minimum wage companies can do and want to do just the same. “...technology has made it possible for employers to simply eliminate entire job categories previously filled by entry-level workers if government mandated make those workers too expensive to justify hiring” (Lovell, 2014). Many companies are worried about success… and if they can gain success by cutting jobs and replacing them with technology, they gladly will. Even if there is no rise in minimum wage, eventually many jobs will still be cut out by technology as we already see happening today; a rise in minimum wage

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