Discussion surrounding raising the minimum wage in the United States has been an ever-increasing talked about subject. Various arguments have been presented on either sides of the spectrum. With that being said, I believe that raising the minimum wage would have more negative effects on our economy than positive ones.
As you may know, Former President Barack Obama was a supporter of increasing the minimum wage, once stating that “no one who works full time should have to live in poverty.” Although I mostly agree with this statement, it does not simply mean that raising the minimum wage would solve the problem. If you take into account the hard facts surrounding minimum wage such as the what effect it will have on the economy, you will see
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Raising minimum wage would, in theory, reduce spending in regards to government welfare. If low-earning workers could earn more money, they would rely on the government less. This might be true, but I don’t think it outweighs the fact that business’s might have to shut down.
Another con of raising minimum wage would be that it would also increase the price of consumer goods. This is a domino effect. If you increase an employee’s wage, the product that employee produces will either need to be sold for more or be made with less labor/resources to make up for the minimum wage increase. There have even been studies to model this as it would likely happen. NBC news reported that the cost of coffee increased as much as 20% in Oakland, California, as a result of increased minimum wage by 36%.
But, once again, there is counterpoint to this argument. It is true that the minimum wage has not accurately kept up with inflation in itself. Since the minimum wage is not measurable for inflation, the number of goods that can be bought with a single unit or currency has gone down largely. In 1968, minimum wage was $1.60. Today’s equivalent of that wage would be about $11.15 as of January 2016. That’s over 50% higher than the current minimum wage. In theory, raising the minimum wage and measuring it accordingly to inflation would ensure low-wage workers could still make a