other than giving the government more money,what is the purpose of raising the minimum wage?

Question

the minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage.it is for unskilled people just entering the labor force.as one becomes more valuble to an employer or gains more skills his wage will go up either by the currrent employer or a new job.
it is basic economics that any cost in production of a sale or good is reflected by an increase in price of the good or service.
all this does is increase the amount of tax and does nothing else because that person is now paying more for what he buys to live.
and how is the increase determined.if $1.15 is good then why not $3 or $5?
in addition to just the wage the employer has to increase his contribution to soc. sec. and workmans comp. thereby increasing the price even more you pay.
is an increased probability of lay offs causing a greater strain of tax base.it goes on and on.

Answer 1

***note this is offensive****

but, who cares? Minimum wage is a way to screw the working man out of money. think about it. I go to college and get a job that pays 20.00 an hour. then they raise the minimum wage to 7.00. now the employer of the local seven eleven has to charge 4.00 for a gallon of milk to pay for his 20 new employees to get that undeserved raise. I'm still making 20.00 but now I'm paying more for milk.

in other words, a minimum wage raise is a pay cut for everyone who earned their way to making good money. and the losers who can't make anything more don't profit either, because the price goes up on EVERYTHING to help pay for all the little loser workers wages.

raising the wage hurts everyone, but poor people are to stupid to understand that more money doesn't mean more things.

Answer 2

The minimum wage has not come anywhere close to keeping up with the cost of living. The minimum wage used to help young people pay their way through college. The minimum wage used to help elderly people on pension or social security to get by and maybe have a few extras. A spouse used to be able to work for minimum wage to supplement the family income, or maybe provide for a vacation. It now cost a young mother more money for day care than they can make on minimum wage. And believe it or not, people used to hold down minimum wage jobs as a second job, again to make their low paying day job cover the bills. Of course it should be a livable wage. At least if there are 2 people working for minimum wage, or a person working 2 jobs at minimum wage. What a snob you are, you have no idea how little some people have to survive. Maybe employers should be willing to lower their dividends to the wealthy, in order to provide a halfway decent wage to their employees, instead of the old lame lie that paying people what their work is worth is what causes high prices.

Answer 3

Not everyone gets a raise. Some people get hired at a job and their employers never give them a raise. And perhaps they are unskilled or whatever, but they don't find a new job. It is all they have, so they have to live on it. So for some people, minimum wage is a living wage.

Just for fun: (I don't know exactly what minimum wage is right now, but let's just say its 5.65.) Even if someone works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, they are still only making $49,494. That is THE MAXIMUM someone who is making minimum wage can earn. Someone only working 40 hours a week is only making $11,752 a year. That isn't enough to live on. Increasing minimum wage at all will help those people who can't earn any more.

Answer 4

That is a great question.... although you pose it as if your opinion on the matter is already set in stone. It is my initial feeling that the question belongs in a political section, rather than economics.

First, I believe your assertion that the government is getting more money for raising min wage to be flawed. Let me give you an example. A family of four... one parent makes min wage and with the other parent working, they are sitting below the poverty line. They are entitled to state assistance that sucks money from government coffers, and gives them a quality of life significantly better than the folks sitting jsut above the poverty line. What is the motivation for the impoverished family with the min wage worker(s) to work harder and make more money, when it might take them 5 years of raisesto reach the total annual income they have with their state assistance (which also includes free health care, free school lunches, heavily subsidized childcare, a monthly paycheck, etc.)

What do you think the effect would be if the thousands of people that purposefully sit below the poverty line were suddenly thrust above the line by government mandated min wage increases? Suddenly, they might have a reason to work harder or become educated.... b/c they cannot rest on the government anymore.

The costs of the min wage increase do not necessarily have to be passed on to the consumer. Sure the cost to the mom-and-pop grocery store down the street would be significant.... but that cost can be compensated for by slightly reducing their workforce or taking a small hit in profit margins. The unskilled workers can easily make the transition to big fast food chain burger flipper or janitor. If nothing else, small business owners can take a perceptual look and the price elasticity of demand and raise prices on low margin items.

I suppose the way you look at it largely depends on your political stance.... but if the min wage increase were 100% bad from every angle, it def wouldn't pass.

Answer 5

Raising the minimum wage is done solely to get votes. It only hurts the people that politicians claim it helps because the price of everything rises and jobs are eliminated.

If a person owns a small business and employs 5 people at minimum wage, when the the minimum wage goes up his expenses go up. To cope with rising expenses, he does two things:
- raise his prices
- eliminate a minimum wage job and employ only 4 people at that the new rate

Furthermore, every time I hear someone say "You can't raise a family on minimum wage", it makes my ears bleed. NO KIDDING!!! Why are people producing children if they can't afford to take care of themselves? It is no way the government's responsibility to force employers to bail them out of their bad decisions.

Answer 6

How about looking at it from the other way. The unskilled persons who come into the market place may not be earning enough to buy basic necessities if the minimum wage is too low. If what they earn is below the level of the current inflation of goods and services how will they be able to afford anything? The minimum wage should be such that it ensures that the persons earning in this bracket can at least afford the basket of necessities.

Answer 7

Have you noticed the cost of living these days? How does a family of 3 or 4 survive on $5 per hour? Even with 2 people working, it doesn't happen. Some American employers can be greedy and never give anyone a decent salary, especially unskilled workers.
Thank goodness for DLT's (department of labor and training).
Did you ask this question to really see what others think or did you present it to present us with your views on it.
That's a mighty long question.

Answer 8

There are a couple of reasons.

One is that large companies (usually located in big cities) want an edge over small ones (often located in small cities). Minimum wage affects much fewer workers in big cities than it does in small cities (cost of living, and of housing in particular, is vastly different); as a result, an increase in the minimum wage is a heavier burden on companies located in small cities.

Another is that unions want to expand their membership base. Most of union members are semi-skilled workers who operate machines. When minimum wage goes up (and equipment prices don't), employers often respond by replacing (non-union) unskilled workers with machines operated by (potentially-union) semi-skilled workers.

Answer 9

Never meant to be a living wage? I.15 makes a difference. Why don't you have this conversation with the millions of people that work on minimum wage and see what they say.

Answer 10

You should not read too much into this.

Raising the minimum wage is just a vote winner.