Why do we need a minimum wage?

Question

I'm of the belief that if you want to improve your situation, you work hard to earn it. If you can't make it on $3.00/hour, you work hard to get a raise, or you find a new job. If your skills only allow you to perform these types of jobs, you get new skills or improve the ones you already have.

I have a wife and 4 kids. When we only had 2 kids, between my job and the wife's job, we were barely able to pay rent and put food on the table. We were juggling other bills. I decided to go back to school and learn a new trade. I worked full time, went to school full time, and spent as much time with my family as I could. It was very hard, but we got through it and I am now in a much better paying job and we are now doing a lot better.

Answer 1

The problem is, there will always be someone else out there desperate enough to work for less than you. So, who will the employer hire? Whoever will work cheapest. And then YOU can't find a job at all.

This drives the rate of pay down to ridiculous levels because people need jobs. A minimum wage forces employers to at least pay a certain amount.

Answer 2

Minimum wage laws avoid extreme gaps between the rich and poor. As a measure, they also tend to raise everyone's salary, because higher paid workers tend to follow raises in minimum wages, either through negotiations with unions or indexation to keep employers competitive. Minimum wages do cause inflation, however, so it's hard to say if anyone is that better off in the long run. They can also be used by governments to increase general standard of living, as companies have to put more of their earnings into wages.
A reasonable minimum wage prevents extreme poverty and despair. Going to school to earn new skills is certainly a good idea, but what if your employer is barely paying you enough to keep you alive even if you're working most of the time (Some countries have such conditions)? Then you can forget about school - even if you could afford it (Which you can't) - you couldn't spare the time off work anyway.
So while too high a minimum wage advantages no one and can have unintended economical consequences, the existence of a reasonable minimum wage makes sense.

Answer 3

Why would let a person that pays $2000.00 haircut, to make a decision on minimum wage. Dems & Reps cannot live more than two days on what a minimum wage earners make all month.
You were lucky, what happens if you got hurt or your kids got sick, layoffs. Or unexpected bills, things happened. I do not believe you pay rent had two kids on a total $6.00 a hour between you and wife. Unless you had help who took care of the kids when you went to school & work? Child Care cost more $6.00 for two kids.

Answer 4

The minimum wage is one of only a sparce few protections granted to US citizens who are living at of below the poverty line in this country. Without establishing a legislative baseline, employers would take advantage of their workers and pay them so poorly that they could not sustain themselves. This is why the legislation was enacted in the first place, because it was happening in the past.

Those of us fortunate enough to be in the endangered middle class can't sincerely appreciate the minimum wage law. As you said, you struggled to survive with the minium wages you and your wife could secure. Imagine what it would have been like if you had to both work 18 hour days just to feed your kids, let alone shelter and clothe them. You would have been unable to go to school to improve yourself, because you would not have had the time. And you were fortunate to have dual incomes. Most single-parent families subsiding on miminum wages have even less of a head start then you did.

Answer 5

Look at Mexico and tell me they would not benefit from a minimum wage .
Hey all the minimum wage is doing is establishing a bottom line for people who work for a living .
It is the lowest paid workers and what we feel as a society they deserve .
How we value peoples contributions and rates of compensation is for me highly suspect .
Like the guy who crawls under your house to spray for bugs or repair a sagging floor . The guy who is covered in filth , a job you would pay anything not to have to do but needs doing .
Slaughter house cleaners and food production line cleaners who deal with remnants of animals and an oder that sticks to them . Clean fish a few times and tell me what they should be paid .
Some people have made millions and done nothing for it . Except be born in the right circles show up at the right college and sit on the right board .
These people leach of society sitting in offices OH who cares I make mine you yours and nothing short of a revolt and minimum wage laws for specific occupations will change things .

Answer 6

To all you out there that wants the government to set minimum wage why not go to it's natural conclusion and raise it to a truly livable wage let's say 20 hr then everyone will be able to live the decently right? If you are contented to exist on the minimun wage and have no incentive to improve your life I don't think that the government should reward you for lack of ambition. The minimun wage is not meant to be a living wage it was devised for those starting out in the job market that do not have any skills such as students, dropouts,seniors as people progress they move out of the minimum wage only 4% of the workforce make the minimun wages so the debate about raising it is really just a feel good measure.

Answer 7

You are a fool. Sorry to put it so bluntly and to be so rude, but it's true. People fought hard and died for a minimum wage and the eight-hour workday, and all over the world the eight-hour workday is being phased out to 10, and if it is not stopped it will go back to 12. Many people are already working 12 hours in two jobs or overtime to make ends meet. Talk like this is what's allowing these corporations to set our wage standards. The minimum wage has not increased with inflation, which in effect means it has gone down, and believe me, that affects your wage. If you are working full time and going to school full time, you are not spending enough time with your family and are a bad father. Stop defending corporations, they can take care of themselves. People need to start standing up for themselves, not for their bosses. You are a slave.

Answer 8

We need a minimum wage, so our bosses don't pay only slave wages. I have been working now for over twenty something years. And I work hard (sometimes) for the money I make. But I will never trust business men. Most of them only look out for themselves.

Edit: Oh the person who gave me a thumbs down doesn't believe me, because I spelt it out in no uncertain terms. I have worked for furtune 500 companys and slightly smaller companies. And they do ONLY think of their bottom line and not their employees. The smaller the company the more your bosses think about keeping their employees happy. I'm not saying I didn't get a few incredible raises that I worked hard to get. But the older I get, the more cynical I get, when it comes to working for big companies.

2nd edit: I see that some of you really don't understand why the minimum wage and minimum wage laws were put into effect. It is to keep bosses from working people to death for pennies an hour. You may not believe that people are capable of doing that, but they are. You should pay more attention of what's going on around the world about labor issues.

Answer 9

You have a point but ignore other points..such as there are companies who take advantage of the minimum wage..not all people are able to find the time or opportunity to educate them selves and the minimum wage in America is not equal to the cost of living..forcing many people to work two full time Jobs...but you have been fortunate but that is not the case with most holding minimum wage Jobs!

Answer 10

We absolutely need a minimum wage. With our southern border being wide open, there would be tens of millions of jobs that employers would pay as little as they could get away with just to put a few more dollars into their own pockets, which would put million more Americans out of work.