Raising Minimum Wage Essay

Throughout the past several years, America has heard the voices of many on protest for the “Fight for 15.” Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour could show that people pushing the issue have their hearts in the right place. However, the impact this would have on the economy would be negative and would be the cause of more economic problems. Raising minimum wage to $15 an hour would be bad for America and its’ economy. One reason why raising minimum wage to $15 an hour is a bad thing is because it would lead to an increase in the cost of labor. If the bare minimum was payed to all employees at an entry-level position, then the cost of labor for all of those employees would be tremendous if it was set at $15 an hour. This would cause for these employees to be more expensive to hire. Having low-skilled employees hired for a cost that would be doubled from the current amount would be a major impact in funds for a company. This would cause there to be a decrease in employees which in turn would make for more work in the same time frame for the $15 an hour minimum wage earners.

It affects the market for unskilled labor” (p 97). This is the basic elementary term for minimum wage in terms of a price floor. Looking at an example from the text, the question being asked was would an increase in the minimum wage mean less jobs? Looking into their test, they discovered the amount of unskilled workers with jobs remained the same. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that a minimum wage increase would have no flaws. Instead, the test questions not the amount of workers employed, but the hour cutbacks that current unskilled employees have received. It was shown that the amount of labor hours was cutback instead of the workers. It should instead be said that the discussion is not of the number of unskilled workers, but the number of unskilled labor