Isn't the whole point of raising the minimum wage to fight inflation?

Question

I mean, inflation happens anyways. Minimum wage does not create thes, it may speed it up but it's there. Why do so many people use inflation as an excuse to not raise it? Should we just screw the lower class? Should I not care unless it affects me??

djs- You lost me, sorry..

9inches- That was the most twisted point I've heard so far.. I'm gonna turn down a raise at my job because I'll have to pay more taxes. Huh???

Answer 1

No the whole point of raising the minimum wage is that little thing he added to it, tax breaks for his rich friends, once again. That and its an election year!!!!!!

Answer 2

Because when you raise minimum wage, then it has a ripple effect of forcing the raise of non-minimum hourly wages across the board. This has the effect of forcing an increase in prices beyond what would have occurred without government meddling.

As for minimum wage, that is really only for new workers or the utterly unskilled or the untrainable. You can walk into any McD's and start at a level above the minimum.

As for the minimum wage, it has a sordid history of actually being responsible for causing widespread unemployment of young, unskilled and undereducated blacks, because at artificially inflated wages, it was economically infeasible to employ them at higher wages.

Other than making politicians and liberals feel good about themselves, and help a small number of people earn a little more, it generally doesn't have a history of actually helping people.

Answer 3

Raising the minimum wage causes inflation. If the cost of a good or service increases, the sale price increases too. Labor is usually the largest cost in producing a good or service. So if you increase the cost of that labor, you increase the cost of the product, and increase the sales price, thus inflation.

Raising the minimum wage is just a politicians' ploy to buy votes. It does not change anything, you make more money, but everything costs more, so you are right back where you started.

Answer 4

The whole point of raising the minimum wage is to force employers to pay more to unskilled workers.

Let's say that you own a business. It's worth $x per hour to you to have someone come in and clean the office every night. Let's say that you are forced to pay $(x+2). You either accept a lower profit margin, raise your prices or cut back on the cleaning service.

This tends to push the price of goods up. After all, if a company has to pay more in wages, then they may have to raise their prices. It's called wage-push inflation.

Answer 5

There are many controls a govt have over inflation. Increasing the minimum wage is one thing that will affect it, but that can easily be counteracted by other means.
The choice is what trade off does the govt want, what level do they set poverty at (to oook good or tough as they see fit) vs income tax or base lending rate?

As for "inflation happens anyway", well only and I mean ONLY because the govt wants it to. It is considered healty and the driving force for investment, without which we would have no development (or so the capitalists would have us believe)

Answer 6

Minimum wage has nothing to do with inflation. The creation of money without substance by the Federal Reserve causes inflation. Raising minimum wage counters inflation for the minimum wage earner though, assuring that their spending power does not decrease with the devaluation of the dollar.

Answer 7

To be completly honest, because of inflation, minimum wage needs to be increased every once in a while but it will increase inflation a lot. The problem for people like my father is that his pay is not going to increase and he is going to be able to do a lot less with his money now.

Answer 8

Inflation's not just about wages, it's about spending, by both the government & consumers.

When there's a huge demand due to high purchases (or consumption), prices rise as resources are limited.

Hyper inflation is due to many factors, not least due to over de-valuation of currencies & overspending.

Unfortunately, money's on the forefront of powerful people's mind - after all, they get richer not just by being smart, but also by squeezing as much as they can from the others

Answer 9

hm lets se here youraise, the minimum wages every time, it drives up pricess in such places as restaurants, they just hire fire fewer people, and try geting anything over 25- 30 hours for the little person in such places i dont know how they make it with paying rents, food bills, medicall, cars, utilities, and basic necesities in life tc, and another thing is when you raiise the, mim-- wage thing, its just another tax rpi off, and if your making lets say 5,15 and hour after taxes your only making 4,00 and hour(minus taxes) so what god does it al do?/ inflation is just a excuse its in the taxes there after they could care lees the more the little person makes the more there gaining back in taxes!! its a way to screw the little guy or gal strugling at lets say fast food joints etc, and yes you should care if your making minimum wage the more you make like we say thee geting more of your tax dollars out of so if your making 6,00 and hour you arent getting a raise your handing it back to the feds or state goverments in taxes do you think they reallywillet you ahead -- right!!

Answer 10

the problem is if the minimum wage goes up 10 cents then the store has to raise their prices to help pay for it. then the delivery person that supplies that store that was making 10 cents more then minimum says its not fair new people make as much as i do so they have to raise their delivery rates to pay that person more. and it just goes up the ranks until everybody has to raise their prices to give everybody a raise and the person who is on minimum wage is no better off.