Informative Essay: No Wagering The Change

No Wagering the Change “Money makes the world go ‘round”. Many people in the United States think minimum wage, which is the minimum amount an employer is legally allowed to pay their employees hourly, should be increased. This is a very dangerous and unthought out idea, however it is certainly understandable where someone who thinks such a thing would be coming from. With that said, the question has not become: “How can getting paid more money possibly be a bad thing?”. The answer to that question however is multifaceted, but it starts with one base ideal: Raising minimum wage doesn’t do any of the good that one might expect it to. The first reason that an increase to the minimum wage would be the wrong decision, is because raising the minimum

If that point wasn’t already clear, the strongest argument that is pro-raising minimum wage is that, someone who gets paid more money, in turn, has more money. In other words, people who think the minimum wage should be raised, would argue that raising minimum wage would decrease poverty. While this argument certainly makes sense when it isn’t thought about too much, it is an argument that is very easily disproved. The first way this argument is disproven, is when inflation is taken into account. Inflation occurs when the buying power of a dollar decreases. “As inflation rises, every dollar you own buys a smaller percentage of a good or service. When prices rise, and alternatively when the value of money falls you have inflation” (Hayes). For this reason a minimum wage increase would never work. If employers are paying employees more then they will raise costs to offset the added expenses. This will cause the buying power of the dollar to decrease, making it so people who received the minimum wage increases will not be making any more money than they otherwise would’ve, and people who did not have their pay increased, will be making even less money then they had used too. This would do nothing but increase the poverty rate even higher, doing exactly the opposite of what the counter argument says it would. The second way this counterclaim is disproven, is because of the increase people will see in the cost of living. With the price of housing, food, etc. going up, and the value of money going down, the cost of living increase exponentially. The cost of living is something that affects everyone, rich and poor, meaning people who are lower middle class would end up being forced down into poverty, once again, increasing the poverty rate. The final way the counterclaim is disproven, is because the increase in taxes would likely offset any monetary gains people would be