The Never Ending Battle
Introduction
The issue of a fifteen dollar minimum wage has been a hot button topic in this recent election season. The Democrats love the idea, but back it with no solids economic concepts and contradictory ideals. The Republicans seem to like the idea of keeping the minimum wage where it is, but have no solution to fix poverty in the United States. It is a constant back and forth of bad ideas. Politicians constantly rant about economics with no basis in really economic theory; their ideas on other topics drip into their policies. The need to spend less time yelling at each other, and more time looking at the facts.
Equilibrium Economics is based in one diagram-- the supply and demand graph. The supply and demand …show more content…
It is the idea that the economy will correct itself in the long-run, without the need of the government artificially manipulating it. Investopedia states “The term ‘invisible hand’ is a metaphor for how, in a free market economy, self-interested individuals operate through a system of mutual interdependence to promote the general benefit of society at large.” So how does this relate to minimum wage? There are many economists that believe that it does not matter what minimum wage is, the economy will correct itself and reach equilibrium on its own. There are businesses now that have realized that if they are paying minimum wage cannot find employees, and so they raise their base-pay. Individual cities have also raised their minimum wage, which in some cases makes sense, the cost of living in New York, New York is much higher than it is in Dubuque, Iowa. It just does not make sense to have a $15/hr. minimum wage in some places. One example of this is the American Multi-Cinema Corp. AMC, last year, was starting all new theatre associates at minimum. This is where the invisible hand comes into place. The company realized that they were not retaining enough talent, and were leaving for higher paying jobs. AMC associates now start at …show more content…
minimum wage will decrease poverty, because it is a “living wage.” The 15 Now Organization states that “Studies show that $15 will lift over 100,000 workers and their families out of poverty in Seattle.” Though this may be true, this does not consider the amount of people that get laid off. Referring back to the supply and demand graph, at $15/hr. there is massive job loss, so instead of the people making at least $7.25/hr. they are making $0/hr. This will increase the poverty rate even higher than it is now. And here come the numbers: Tim Worstall of Forbes states “And here is a bit of that reality: an analysis of what will actually happen if anyone is deluded enough to try to make $15 an hour the national minimum wage for the US. 6.6 million, yes, that's 6,600,000 jobs will be lost. That's actually more people than earn at or under the current minimum wage.” (Worstall). This is an incredible amount of people who will not be making anything, compared to everyone making
Introduction
The issue of a fifteen dollar minimum wage has been a hot button topic in this recent election season. The Democrats love the idea, but back it with no solids economic concepts and contradictory ideals. The Republicans seem to like the idea of keeping the minimum wage where it is, but have no solution to fix poverty in the United States. It is a constant back and forth of bad ideas. Politicians constantly rant about economics with no basis in really economic theory; their ideas on other topics drip into their policies. The need to spend less time yelling at each other, and more time looking at the facts.
Equilibrium Economics is based in one diagram-- the supply and demand graph. The supply and demand …show more content…
It is the idea that the economy will correct itself in the long-run, without the need of the government artificially manipulating it. Investopedia states “The term ‘invisible hand’ is a metaphor for how, in a free market economy, self-interested individuals operate through a system of mutual interdependence to promote the general benefit of society at large.” So how does this relate to minimum wage? There are many economists that believe that it does not matter what minimum wage is, the economy will correct itself and reach equilibrium on its own. There are businesses now that have realized that if they are paying minimum wage cannot find employees, and so they raise their base-pay. Individual cities have also raised their minimum wage, which in some cases makes sense, the cost of living in New York, New York is much higher than it is in Dubuque, Iowa. It just does not make sense to have a $15/hr. minimum wage in some places. One example of this is the American Multi-Cinema Corp. AMC, last year, was starting all new theatre associates at minimum. This is where the invisible hand comes into place. The company realized that they were not retaining enough talent, and were leaving for higher paying jobs. AMC associates now start at …show more content…
minimum wage will decrease poverty, because it is a “living wage.” The 15 Now Organization states that “Studies show that $15 will lift over 100,000 workers and their families out of poverty in Seattle.” Though this may be true, this does not consider the amount of people that get laid off. Referring back to the supply and demand graph, at $15/hr. there is massive job loss, so instead of the people making at least $7.25/hr. they are making $0/hr. This will increase the poverty rate even higher than it is now. And here come the numbers: Tim Worstall of Forbes states “And here is a bit of that reality: an analysis of what will actually happen if anyone is deluded enough to try to make $15 an hour the national minimum wage for the US. 6.6 million, yes, that's 6,600,000 jobs will be lost. That's actually more people than earn at or under the current minimum wage.” (Worstall). This is an incredible amount of people who will not be making anything, compared to everyone making