The Pros And Cons Of Raising Minimum Wage

An increasingly controversial issue in today’s society is whether minimum wage should be raised. Some people think that this would be a simple solution to many of the economic issues we have because people would make more and spend more. The other side to raising minimum wage has many of the negative effects that it could cause, such as skyrocketing prices of things or small businesses going out of business. While there are both positives and negatives to both sides of the controversy, there doesn’t seem to be a simple answer.

Positives of Raising Minimum Wage
In the article “Raising Minimum Wage Is Common Sense: Column” written by Jack Quinn, Connie Morella, Steve LaTourette, and Mike Castle, who have all worked in politics, explain that their argument for raising minimum wage is simple; when the cost of living goes up, so should minimum wage. …show more content…
Raising minimum wage could cause in increase in prices everywhere and create fewer jobs. In the article “Why I Don’t Think We Should Raise Minimum Wage” William Dunkelberg, Chief Economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, explains why he thinks raising minimum wage could cause many issues, and end up being worse than it is now. “The percentage of the eligible population with a job has dropped dramatically from 64.7% in 2000 to just 59.3.”(Dunkelberg). Part of this has to do with the baby boomer generation retiring, but also many of the younger generations have stopped looking for jobs. They realize that they can live off of welfare payments, instead of getting a job. This can be a problem for many businesses, considering that every year there is three million people added to the economy. Each person needs things like haircuts, food, etc., but businesses are running into the problem of not having enough workers to supply these jobs. “But the available supply