Minimum Wage

Also could you please explain this again? 'Also if they are able to pay their employees...'" I'll try to explain this the opposite way. Imagine a pizza parlor (I think that is what it is called) that has no payments it needs to make except employee wages (no electric, water, etc. [this is to make the example make more sense]). Say they charge $5.00 for pizza, but must use $2.50 of each pizza to put into their employees paychecks. The other $2.50 is profit for the company. Then, imagine one day that the minimum wage (which the pizza parlor was paying the workers) was doubled from $1 and hour to $2 an hour. Now, with each pizza the company sells, they have to set aside twice as much, $5.00, to pay their employees because minimum wage was doubled. (Also, please note that I am making up these numbers for clarification.) Now, the company gets no profits from selling $5.00 pizzas, so they start charging $7.50 so that they still get a profit of $2.50. Before the minimum wage hike, the company sold about 100 pizzas per day. Now, about half the customers have started going to other pizza parlors for their pizzas because the other pizza parlors charge just $6.00 per pizza. Now, the first company, instead of getting $250 per night, they only get $125 per night for profits. To balance this out, they must start charging $10.00 for a pizza so that they get twice as much, $5.00, per pizza in profits. Now they lose a few more customers so that they only earn $200 per night, which is still $50 lower than before the minimum wage increase, so they decide to charge $11.00 per pizza. Now, let's say they get around $240 per night, but they decide to keep the price there to keep the few customers they have. Now the pizza is more than twice as much as before the minimum wage hike, but the employees' wages are just doubled. If the minimum wage were to go down to $1 again, they would probably lower their prices back down to $5.00 again so that they get more profits overall. (Does this make sense?) When they lower their prices, customers would come back because wouldn't you much rather buy a $5.00 dollar pizza, and not an $11 pizza? "Since many people cannot get other, higher paying jobs, they WILL take the $1 an hour wage." Yeah. And if minimum wage is above $1, then maybe the employer will decide that they don't need that job (maybe just do 2 cashiers instead of 3), and then potential employees get paid $0 an hour. "$1... That does not suffice for the cost of living." Again, without minimum wage things would get cheaper. "Unfortunately, with that mindset you get companies that care more about profits than people." So making a minimum wage somehow makes companies love their employees more? Also, they can show employees that they care through other ways, like pension. "You mentioned the dime stores, I feel like that is a misinterpretation of history. I was always under the impression that that was connected to inflation." I'm sure that there were a variety of causes that they all closed, but my point is that now prices are higher than in the past. Again, some of it is due to inflation and things like that, but minimum wage is still a factor. I don't exactly have a source for this, but, again, minimum wage does pretty much require companies to either lay off workers, raise prices, or completely shut down; otherwise, they don't make enough profits. "Since there was no minimum wage before 1938 (like you mentioned), companies paid whatever they wanted. These employees worked in horrid conditions, received little pay, and if they were injured on the job, they were just kicked out and not compensated for damages." How would making a minimum wage help this? "I know minimum wage jobs are in high demand (factory working for example) but that doesn't mean the employees have any leverage." Again, they can apply to work for the company that will give them the best pay, pension, etc. They aren't forced to work some terrible factory job. Again, many restaurants and places like that always have "now hiring" signs up because they need people (sorry if I committed another fallacy there). "If you're a doctor, the hospital NEEDS you and you have a lot more room to argue for your pay." What you were insinuating earlier is that every company can just kick people out because there are bunches and bunches of people just waiting to get a job. Explain how your reasoning wouldn't apply to doctors as well. "You mentioned how now the companies could cut the wage and employ more workers but that only benefits the companies like I keep saying." So, it is better for companies to pay 1 worker $100 an hour instead of having 10 workers get paid $10 an hour? Are you saying it is better to be unemployed than to get at least a little pay? Earlier, you said, "Since they cannot get other, higher paying jobs, they WILL take the $1 an hour wage. Because a tiny wage is better than none, right?" (Round 1) So now you say it is better for people to be unemployed? Also, when there are more workers, the customers are also benefitted. Instead of waiting 20 minutes for you pizza, you only have to wait 10. This would not solely benefit the company. It benefits a lot more people than that. "If the restaurant has better service, people will definitely come more often. Thus they get more money. However, they are not necessarily incentivized to lower prices. Why would they do that? Then they get less profits!" I disagree. Lower prices means more customers which means more money overall. If pizza at company A costs $5 while all the other companies' pizzas cost $20, most customers would go to company A. They would probably get more than 4x the business of the other companies leading to more profits. A lot of people are going to buy something if it is cheap enough. "Assuming every factory or company wants to share their profits is a little naive." Yeah, companies don't always share their profits with their employees. Bumping up their wages doesn't always help, because the companies just make the customers pay the extra cost. Why would making them pay their employees more make them want to lose profits and do nothing about it? 'It is most probable that they will end up taking the highest paying job (if it is available) which will still be ridiculously low." Maybe, but the prices of everything will also be "ridiculously" low. Also, even with minimum wage, people just take the highest paying job they can find. "Also regarding competition, if the company can now spend money on better service..." Paying employees better can translate to them being happier which translates to better service... "and less on employees, people will still come and purchase their services. The company won't have to worry about competition..." Yes, they will. Companies always have to worry about competition. "or companies with higher wages because they will have the best quality..." Not necessarily. Quality isn't everything. Other things factor into how many customers you get, like location. Also, you probably agree that McDonald's probably isn't the best quality fast food. They still have way more customers than other places. Plus, quality also normally increases the price of something. If you still somehow have a great quality $5 pizza without making it super expensive, you probably will get more customers. The problem is that you can't make high-quality $5 pizzas very fast. They take more time, so some customers will go to a different pizza company (I like this example, sorry if it gets repetitive) that makes their pizzas faster. Now, your money used on the quality of the pizzas has gone to waste. "(not necessarily the happiest employees)." And unhappy employees can translate to slow, unhappy-looking, possibly rude employees. This translates to your customers not liking your customer service which causes them to go to a different company. Employee happiness is important! "And if their employees are not the best, they have the power. They can fire the, and someone else who needs a job will show up at the interview." You can't just fire people left and right. First off, possible employees will notice how many people get fired, and not want to interview because they fear that they too will be fired soon anyways so it isn't even worth their time to interview. Also, even if people were to show up to an interview, it would be hard to find some perfect, super-friendly, super-fast person. That person is more likely to apply for a job at higher-paying companies. Also, how does minimum wage stop this? I'm sure you still meet bad (slow, rude, etc.) workers at fast food places all the time! Their employers can't just fire people like that left and right because there aren't enough people willing to fill their spot. "I don't think we should abolish the wage because high schools kids don't need money." So, instead of being able to pay high schoolers $5 an hour, you are going to make more people suffer the effects of higher prices, unemployment and the like? (Sorry, I'm running out of characters, so I will maybe continue more rebuttals for the next round.) Just remember, T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L.! There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch! This pretty much means that even though some people will get a pay increase, there will still be downsides, such as price increases. If there are no downsides to minimum wage (which you insinuate), then why not raise it to 1 million? Then everybody would be rich according to your argument, right? (This is one of the things I remember from my sister, and yeah, I agree, that wasn't a good point in round 2. Anyway, I incorporate some of her arguments into my own.) Here are some links you should check out: https://reason.com... https://www.facesof15.com... Thank you for reading this and I await your argument