The Pros And Cons Of Raising Minimum Wage

However, it’s not all black and white as it seems. When the minimum wage is high, the services that people have to pay might also increase. So, that leaves the employees in a same situation. (Earn more and pay more). The other major problem is, small business will stop hiring people, as they could not afford to pay a higher

Should america raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour ? No america should not raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour for 3 reasons, the first reason is because of the potential to lose millions of jobs, the second is prices going up and the third and final reason is businesses closing down.

According to a study done by Perdue University, “…paying fast-food restaurant employees $15 an hour could lead to higher prices. Prices at those businesses could increase by an estimated 4.3%, according to the report” (Wihbey, Effects of raising the minimum wage: Research and critical lessons”). With a higher minimum wage, businesses must then pay their employees more, and to pay these additional expenses; they are coerced to charge more for their products, which impacts everybody, making it more difficult for people to provide for their families. The Cato Institute stated, “According to a review of more than 20 minimum wage studies observing price effects found that a 10 percent increase in the US minimum wage raises food prices by up to 4 percent” (Wilson, “Four Reasons Not to Raise the Minimum Wage”). If the federal minimum wage increases from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour, it is being increased by slightly more than 206%, which, according to this study, could lead to almost an 84% growth in food prices. According to another study on the effects of an increase in the federal minimum wage on consumer prices in the Reason magazine, “Raising the minimum wage to $15 could increase the cost of food by 43%” (47: 10). After a significant increase in the federal minimum wage, the employees who did not lose their jobs would then be receiving

Since businesses would have to pay more in salaries, they would hire less, or not hire at all.

Should the minimum wage be raised? Many minimum wage workers would say “yes,” reasoning that one can not support oneself without a proper pay worth more than $7.25 an hour in exchange for laborious work. Others might disagree and say that it would be unreasonable to raise the minimum wage since jobs such as in the food and clothing industry usually hire unskilled cheap labor in order to maintain cheap prices. However, since I work in the restaurant industry I am familiar with the working environment and the strive to make money. Working with adults that struggle to pay bills and support a family, I am thankful that I do not independently need to support myself. In seeking the answer to my question, I have read and analyzed two opposing essays

Minimum wage is currently at 7.25 (Furman) if minimum wage goes up so does everything else, so it wouldn’t make a difference. Food cost will go up, such as milk sugar, and everything else we use on a daily basis. Not only that but, It could cause a store to shut down due to having to pay employees twice as much as before. Labor cost would be high and unreasonable. If the prices of items or product being sold doesn’t go up.

“I finally got a raise!” Todd exclaimed “They raised the minimum wage!” “Actually Todd, raising the minimum wage ruins the economy,” said Christine popping his bubble of excitement. Christine is right, raising the minimum wage will damage the economy and leave businesses closed and people jobless. Prices will sky rocket and leave families struggling to buy now overpriced groceries. Leaving the people it is meant to help in worse conditions. Although raising the minimum wage sounds great, with a plethora of research it rips the economy into pieces.

In addition, in 2015, Purdue University did a study about the effects of raising the minimum wage. The study found that raising the wage of fast food restaurant employees to $15 per hour would cause a price increase of 4.3%, and a reduction in product size between 12% and 70% (Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?). NBC News also looked into the effects of raising the minimum wage. They found that in Oakland, California, the price of coffee went up by nearly 20%, this was after a 36% minimum wage increase (Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?). NBC news also reported in Chicago there was a 6.7% rise in coffee prices, after the minimum wage increased to $10 (Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?).

One of them being if they raise the minimum wage in an area businesses will just lay employees off due to them not being able to pay them such a high salary. To this I say that there certainly is no way of saying there will be no layoffs due to this, but as a New York Times article has stated in 2003 Santa Fe, New Mexico had a roughly steep citywide minimum wage increase and several economic analyses suggested it had little effect on employment. In another article by Forbes says how there have been peer-reviewed studies using both mathematical modeling and statistical evidence The consensus being that there is little to no impact on employment. Inflation is also a big talking point when it comes to the possibility of raising the minimum wage and in the New York Times article mentioned also covered this subject. They said, “businesses in high-cost cities often have transient customers who are less price-sensitive, making it easier for them to partly offset higher wages through price increases” and also how many of these cities have tourist who were going to spend money there regardless. Another counter point is how a lot of these fast food chains will replace the employees with machines. Even though this seemed inevitable due to our increasing technology, people will still prefer human experience

Companies will have to pay for the wage rise and make products more expensive. By increasing the minimum wage companies will have to pay their employees more.

Raising the minimum wage is a very important public policy issue. Raising the minimum wage is a responsible policy that is supported by research and demanded by the American public. Each day, minimum wage workers across the country struggle to make ends meet and provide a decent life for their kids (Scott & Perez, 2016). Raising the minimum wage is a controversial issue, many believe that raising the minimum wage would only provide low wage workers more money to spend. However, the benefits can be endless for low wage workers. If minimum wage is increased across the United States it would afford the people effected more opportunities for financial freedom. Increasing the minimum wage would raise the standard of living for low wage workers, allow families to be removed from poverty, allow for government welfare spending to be reduced and lastly additional income being spent would positively affect the economy.

Raising the minimum wage will result in the raise of prices, in 2007 the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago created a study that found that restaurant prices will rise in response to minimum wage increases. The only thing raising minimum wage would result in is creating higher prices that are more difficult for middle wage workers to meet.

To start with, some people think that job situations would either stay the same or flourish, but in all reality it’s the complete opposite. Brad Schiller, from LA Times says, “…qualifies as an effective wage hike and will surely lead to fewer jobs,” (Schiller). Meaning that the more the minimum wage goes up, the more people lose their jobs, which leads to a higher unemployment rate. Also, as said in an article from Shift, “McDonald’s chose to deal with France’s recent government-mandated wage increases by replacing humans with 7,000 touch-screen

First, the fast food industry is one of many factors that is impacted by the minimum wage. Matter of fact, the fast food workers demanded that the minimum wage is raised to $15 since the average wage for workers is $8.94 and this does not include “wage theft,” such as no overtime pay, not receiving proper break times, and missing hours from the paychecks. Additionally, low wages bring down collective action among the workers, the workers’ hours are never guaranteed and are sent

While the bill to raise the minimum wage, the Fair Minimum Wage Act, would provide a 33 percent wage increase for the regular worker, earnings would more than double for food service workers. As a result of these increases in wages, retail grocery store food prices would only increase by an average of less than half a percent. (Gimenez)