Minimum wage.?

Question

I have worked for $1 a hour that was the going wage. I was unskilled & in high school. Raising the minimum wage is not going to help anyone. when you are forced to raise someones pay ,1 of 2 things happen. You either raise the price of your product or you lay people off. If I am working for someone & i make $.10 over minimum & the owner has to raise the wage $.25 then I want a raise. so who loses the person he was going to hire when he has me for that 10 cents more. It is a circle. no one wins. why not let the market decide the wage? If no one will work for what you are offering wont you have to offer more? why should millionaires decide my bussiness?

Answer 1

In a way you are right and have hit on an important issue with the whole concept of minimum wage. If the minimum wage is $5 and some one who lacks skills in anything is willing and able to work for $4 and the employer is willing to hire him for $4, then the minumum wage will keep that person unemployed. For this reason raising the minimum wage can have the unwanted effect of causing some people to lose their jobs. There should almost be a two-tiered sysem, whereby by mutual consent and filing paperwork, an employer can hire below the minimum wage if the job seeker requests it.

A straight, across the board increase in the minimum wage can result in a loss of income to many people.

Answer 2

i dont agree with you that 1 or 2 things happen.

In Europe especially, the governments set high min wages,
comparable to here. And they Pump money funds into projects,
just as most goverments/countries do. (and large pipelines,tunnels,bridges,housing complexes,dams,alternative
energy works,national and international disarsters, all need massive amounts in our by now Mass society- which is still growing!).

Governments can spend their huge tax funds-on good long
term beneficial works(like housing,roads,tsunami warnings and
the like). Including a minimum wage; for people will still
work hard and diligently, to better themselves and to better
their area.
"Pie-in-the-sky-talk perhaps; but i believe in more,
much more too(and hopefully our beautiful world/area will be a
Lot different in 200 years time, a good difference too!).

Perhaps a small country might adopt a whats-thought- reasonable minimum wage;and in the process may require their
whole government to actually live and work,for their own people,
ON this low wage; say, for 6 months or so.And their"leader" or
president.

Again, high-faluting thoughts,i suppose.

But please dont forget, things like this do happen, if not just
because they are reasonable and helpful; Helpful to all,too.

Answer 3

The democrats raise the minimum wage to apease the low income voters in the country to keep their votes. Many low income people think the Democrats are on their side. They don't realise that the Republicans are the ones who want to push the free market forward more which is what creates more jobs and better paying jobs. When all you do is increase the minimum wage then all that happens is exactly what you said in your question.

Answer 4

Minimum wage is contra-flow in regards to the market, forcibly disrupting the natural flow of money in the market. For instance, if there were no minimum wage, John at John's Fish could hire 20 employees for 1$ an hour for a cost of 20$/hour to him. Now of course, if Jack at Jack's Hotdogs was paying 2$ an hour to only 10 employees, he would have less employees, but would be able to attract better employees, and since outpaying his competition, he would be able to keep a full roster employees, while John might not have enough people to work. This is pretty much a supply-demand look at wage work. Now, lets bring this same idea to minimum wage. John can only afford to spend 24$/hour on his employees. He used to pay 6 employees 4$ each, but not thanks to the government, he has to pay employees 6$ each, and now has to wait much longer before he gets enough money to hire anyone else and may even have to fire 2 people simply because he cannot afford to keep them all working for him, leaving him with 4 employees at 6$ an hour, and probably more expensive fish products to help make up for his new greater expense.

Europe has strong problems with this. In many European countries, jobs have substantial benefits in comparison to the U.S. jobs, from vacations to health care to shorter work days, in addition to the occasional high minimum wage. All this does is cost an employer A LOT more to just hire an extra employee, thus making it not even worth it for the employer to high another employee. Less jobs = higher unemploymeny = less people with money = less kids with good health and education = decline in country


P.S. raising minimum wage raises the amount of money the prime consumers have, thus allowing for the price of goods to rise (i.e. gas) since there is more money in the hands of the spenders [inflation], and since the cost to make all the goods rises (yes, it costs money, paying people, to bag groceries, or drive transport trucks, or make jeans). taking into consideration all the expenses people have (natural gas, food, water, beverages, entertainment, taxes, etc.), is the boosting of minimum wage to give people more money really worth it, even if unemployment wouldn't rise?

Answer 5

How can anyone say the Min wage hike is bad. When CEO's make up from 100 to 500+ times more than min wage, and when sports teams like the one that is going to give Beckman 250million over 5 years. That is ridiculous lets put that money into the economy and under payed workers pockets!!!

Answer 6

raising minimum wage when that happens everything else goes up food clothes etc. and therefore what little bit of raise we all get turns out to be nothing because of all the higher prices we have to pay yes it sucks all the way around

Answer 7

Let's make it $100/hour. If $7.15 is good then $100 is better. You are 100% correct. The market should decide.

Answer 8

Ah, so you've figured it out. I guess most people don't understand basic economics and instead of explaining it to them politicians react to their demands.

How do we get out of this vicious circle?