How does raising the minimum wage help?

Question

I find that low income workers are best served by learning new skills to serve others so they can earn more. I failed in school but got a clue and started asking for help on how to do better at my job. I progressed way up over time with study and hard work, so I am wondering why Congress wants to give a handout of a higher wage? Can't most anyone learn and progress in the US? I work with minority folks who make high incomes simply because they chose to learn and grow to serve others better. I see this move by Congress damaging the low wage worker because they are telling them: "you don't need to learn and grow; we will take from the rich to give you more." That seems to hurt them. Aren't the Democrats hurting low income workers? Wouldn't it be better if they set up winsome mentoring/coaching programs to encourage low income workers to learn skills to better serve others and increase their incomes? Teach them to fish rather than give them fish?

The point is to provide low income workers with mentoring, coaching and training from the govt or tax credits to their employer. Not charge them. It is free for them, to help them grow. That blesses them and our economy, to become a skilled workforce

Answer 1

Reality check. I was earning minimum wage in a job training program when Florida raised theirs $1/hr. W/o it, I would have ended up homeless. I had already been in several of those "job creation" programs you speak of. Those workers helping us were living comfortably middle classed, & the training was almost useless (I mean the govt sponsored ones, not some of the local grass roots ones.) it seemed about only 1 in 30 got above minimum wage jobs; only about 1 in 12 actually found any real job at all.

BTW, I am 62, above average IQ, & supported myself most of my life despite some handicaps. but in the end, I ended up where I am & damn thankful for the SS earned over my working career & the job training programs that kept me alive until I could draw it It is keeping a roof over my head.

Now I call you out. When you first went to work, you were on minimum wage, unless you are older than I am. W/o minimum wage, you would have earned a lot less which would have made it much more difficult for you to get by until you had the opportunity to better yourself. That makes you a hypocrite, friend. It's OK since we all are to a degree, but no one should forget even a small part of what we came from.

Answer 2

Actually, it helps no one. If wages get artificially raised, the cost of living raises with it exponentially. When it costs more to produce a product (whether it's a hamburger or a new car) retail and wholesale prices must go up to compensate for the higher costs. The money to pay the higher wages has to come from somewhere. If the prices were not raised, a co. would soon go "in the red" (not make enough money to be profitable) and would be forced into bankruptcy or out of business. Profit is the desired result of any business and if no profit is made, why be in business in the first place? For every minimum wage hike, some people will loose jobs (labor force be cut back) because the $ to pay the higher wages was formerly used to hire new laborers. Small business gets hurt the worst because the owner usually isn't making a big profit in the first place.
You are right about workers needing to learn new skills. Who wants to make sandwiches or dig ditches all their life?

Answer 3

I am going to be crucified for this but here goes.... Raising the minimum wage hurts small business as they hire less people, give fewer benefits and have to raise their retail prices.

High school students - people getting their first job and some poor start at minimum wage. They want the experience of working to move on to something better.
Most employers offer a pay increase after so many hours or days worked. Weeds out the people that aren't going to stick around.

I know a lot of small business owners that have already said they will be doing no new hiring this year. They are thinking of cutting hours for some employees , eliminating overlapping shifts and handling more of their business personally.
In places like retail stores - they don't pay minimum wage so they don't care.
Do you know the starting wage at Sears, Macy's, Walmart ?
But anyone want to bet in 6 months their prices will be going up and they will be blaming the minimum wage increase???

Answer 4

All the minimum wage talk is just another stunt. They did an investigation at the Arkansas Democrat newspaper in Little Rock, Ar (49 in income). they found very few people making min wage here. Most of the story turned out to be how hard it was to find min wage workers.
I live in the Ozarks which is full of the poorest people and min wage means nothing. I thnk thoughthey should index it to inflation. Of course they would have to stop lying about what inflation really is

Answer 5

Some 48%, or 3.5 million, are between 25 and 64 yrs old who, on average, contribute more than 1/2 of the income in their households, experts say. Raising the minimum wage is supported by 83% of Americans, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press.

One reason even some Republicans are mulling the wage hike is that the number of single mothers making minimum wage has nearly doubled in the last 10 yrs. Of Americans making less than $7.25 an hour, 1/2 are over 24 yrs old, and 1/2 are primary household earners. 62% are white, 16% are black, and 17% are Hispanic. Nearly twice as many are women than men.

That means half of minimum wage earners are NOT teenagers and contribute at least half of their household earnings. A quarter of these people leave will their jobs. One can only imagine they go on welfare.

Isn't it better to pay these people a living wage so at least the money goes back into the local economy, rather than forcing them to ask for govt. aid?


this is from another question........ i copied it......

Answer 6

the thing is that many people do not have the means to learn, and often do not have a very good education. If you don't have the money to buy clothes and food, how are you going to come up with the money to go back to school? Many people now need to use that time to work another job so they can make ends meet.

The minimum wage is not a handout. It helps the economy (proven) and it Allows people to keep up with inflation and make ends meet.

You have never been in a position where you have had to work minimum wage, have you? nobody wants to work minimum wage, but some people are forced to by life circumstances. I'm guessing you're not one of those people.

Answer 7

This is not my work !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this the work of a college professor named Wlater Williams, but he answers your quesition beautifluly.....................................................
Economic theory is quite simple but yields powerful predictions. You don't have to be an economist to understand economics. It's easy. Say you commissioned me to do a study to make recommendations on how to eliminate Haitian poverty. Upon completion of the study I tell you what's needed is for the Haitian legislature to enact a $7.00 an hour minimum wage law. That way Haitians would no longer be poor. President Clinton and Department of Labor Secretary Robert Reich would probably compliment me on my findings, but you'd probably say, "Williams, you are a fool." You'd be right. If higher miminum wages were an effective anti-poverty device world poverty would have been eliminated ages ago.

Minimum wage proponents say higher minimum wages won't cause unemployment. The first fundamental law of demand, to which there are no exceptions, says when prices rise people tend to buy less and when they fall people tend to buy more. When beef prices rise we buy less. When interest rates rise we take out fewer mortgages. After all if people didn't respond that way sellers could charge any price they wanted and we'd still buy it. Labor services are no different. When its price exceeds its value - what labor can produce - employers will buy less of it and seek substitutes. Among those substitutes are automation, moving to a lower wage country and customer self-service.

"Williams," you say, "but what can be done to raise people's wages?" Low wages are more a result of people being under productive rather than underpaid. They simply do not have the skills to produce and do things their fellow man highly values. Seldom do we find poor highly productive individuals or nations. Those who earn low wages tend to have low skills and education. Our challenge is how can we make these people more productive? Raising minimum wages will not raise worker productivity; however, it can sabotage worker potential to acquire higher productivity.

Put yourself in the place of an employer and ask: if I must pay Clinton's minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, does it pay me to hire a worker so unfortunate as to have skills enabling him to produce only $3.00 an hour worth of value? Most employers would see that as a losing economic proposition and wouldn't hire such a worker. Therefore, a major impact of the minimum wage law is to discriminate against the employment of low skilled workers. The denial of a job makes the disadvantages of low skilled workers more permanent. After all one of the most important means to higher skills is to be employed in the first place and receive on-the-job training and learn about other opportunities.

Among academic economists there is little or no debate over the unemployment effects of minimum wages. Our only debate is the magnitude of unemployment. Close to 90 percent of academic economists agree minimum wages cause unemployment especially for teenagers, particularly black teenagers. Check it out yourself: introductory college textbooks in most sciences represent a distillation of what constitutes a broad consensus in the field. Virtually all economic textbooks, that say something about minimum wages, conclude it causes unemployment.

People working at or near the minimum wage are exercising their best known alternative. Even though their income is meager we shouldn't destroy that alternative just so we can feel good. The minimum wage and other regulations help explain why today's underclass has taken on a permanency not typical of yesteryear. I'm with Majority Leader, Congressman Dick Armey. The minimum wage law is evil legislation and deserving of repeal altogether.

Answer 8

Everyone who knows the basic economic rule of supply and demand will realize that raising the wage (the price of labour) will cause a fall in demand for labour.in other words-employers have limited funds and after a rise of wages can employ less people.
Rise of the minimum wage causes rise of unemployment.

Answer 9

When you lift anything, you lift from the bottom, when you do this you move every thing even the top. There is more money being spent which means more jobs, etc. When you lift from the top (tax loopholes) (corporate welfare) all you do is lift the top it never has nor will it ever trickle down to the poor or even middle class. The money ends up at the top anyway. As when these people spend they are buying stuff from the rich and very rich ultimately. Now think about it don't just rant.

Answer 10

Raising the min wage will not help anyone. Stores who hire these people will lay off or reduce hours. How is that helping? Not to mention if business pays its employees more than their profit is less! To offset that they must reduce staff/hours raise prices etc. Therefore who is being helped? We all pay higher prices the people with min wage jobs see fewer hours possible lay off! Are they getting any skills? No they are not! Democrats feel handouts like raising min wage welfare etc are the answer when clearly they are not!