A highly debated topic is what the minimum wage should be for workers in America. This is the bare minimum that a person needs to live or that is its intent. Some people feel that it is too low, and that we should raise it. The United States Department of Labor says the raising the minimum wage will be good for the economy and also good for business (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). However some people think raising the minimum wage will be bad. The CATO Institute, in their Four Reasons Not to Raise the Minimum Wage article, bring up the points that raising minimum wage would, “result in job loss…, hurt low-skilled workers…, and higher prices for consumers” (Four Reasons Not to Raise the Minimum Wage). We should not raise the minimum wage. The U.S.
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In their article, Four Reasons Not to Raise the Minimum Wage they give some well thought out arguments on the consequences of raising the minimum wage. Their first point is that “it would result in job loss” (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). The show an estimate of 1.3 million jobs would be lost in 2010 if the wage was increased to $9.50 an hour (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). This is mostly due to the fast that businesses cannot afford this amount of pay. In order to keep a business profitable you have to bring in more money than you send out. So, to lower costs the first and most logical option is to fire people and let others pick up their slack. This contributes to the rising unemployment rate. They express this in their second point by saying, “it would hurt lower skiled workers” (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). In one analysis they cover, a small increase in minimum wage resulted in about a 20% reduction in jobs for people with these jobs (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). This shows us that by increasing minimum wage we are not helping out the people with these job, we could actually be doing the opposite. In an article from the Economist called Middle of the Class, they show that “80 percent think it is possible to start out poor, work hard and become rich” (Middle of the Class 483). People might think this but in reality it would be much hard for this to happen if there are less jobs available to start with. The last
In their article, Four Reasons Not to Raise the Minimum Wage they give some well thought out arguments on the consequences of raising the minimum wage. Their first point is that “it would result in job loss” (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). The show an estimate of 1.3 million jobs would be lost in 2010 if the wage was increased to $9.50 an hour (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). This is mostly due to the fast that businesses cannot afford this amount of pay. In order to keep a business profitable you have to bring in more money than you send out. So, to lower costs the first and most logical option is to fire people and let others pick up their slack. This contributes to the rising unemployment rate. They express this in their second point by saying, “it would hurt lower skiled workers” (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). In one analysis they cover, a small increase in minimum wage resulted in about a 20% reduction in jobs for people with these jobs (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). This shows us that by increasing minimum wage we are not helping out the people with these job, we could actually be doing the opposite. In an article from the Economist called Middle of the Class, they show that “80 percent think it is possible to start out poor, work hard and become rich” (Middle of the Class 483). People might think this but in reality it would be much hard for this to happen if there are less jobs available to start with. The last