The Minimum Wage Creates Unemployment

Rebuttal "I have provided a link below containing scatterplots for minimum wage and unemployment. The site makes a few quick observations that can be plainly seen in the scatterplots. It shows that there is no notable correlation between minimum wage and unemployment rates. There is a slight correlation, But it as noted that this is not sufficient. There is also a point on the scatterplot that shows that some of the lowest employment rates happened at the same time as some of the highest minimum wages. No on to my practical arguments. " I will address the integrity of this data later. "First of all. Let me remind everyone that labor unions fought very hard for a minimum wage. If we were to remove it and find out it was a bad idea, " This is irrelevant. "We might be stuck with a bad economy for a decade or more. " You are speculating this; you can't substantiate this. "So the minimum wage is different everywhere, But I think that $8/hr can serve a working estimate for the purposes of my points. So my opponent says that this eight dollar limit is hurting employment. " That is not my argument. I specifically stated "The Minimum Wage Creates Unemployment. " The $8 does not matter. It could be $7, $6, Or $5. As long as the price floor is imposed and set above equilibrium, It will create unemployment. "So the minimum wage is different everywhere, But I think that $8/hr can serve a working estimate for the purposes of my points. So my opponent says that this eight dollar limit is hurting employment. Let me show why this is false with some math. So depending on where you live, You have to pay a certain amount of rent, Utilities, Food cost, Gas, And other misc. Items. I will use the midwest as a model since I live here and all the numbers will be fairly matched to each other. I don't want to use, Say, New yorks numbers because they're cost of living is much higher. So where I live, The average rent is between 400-500 dollars. If one is single, They could grind really hard and find an efficiency with all utilities included for about 300-350 dollars. Lets look at single people first and then we'll move on to families. A single person who works for $8/hr 40 hours a week will make $320 aweek gross. Once we take about about 20% for taxes. This wold be about $254 a week. So over the course of a 4 week month, A person averages about $1000 per month. So I'll use the modest rent estimate of 300 and this brings our single person down to $700 for the month. I have a source in the bottom denoting the average cost of food in america. There are some variables here, But the average cost per year per person is about 2, 600 dollars for the year. We devide this by 12 or the months and we get about $215 a month on food. Subtract this from our $700 and we get $485 dollars. Now we have to take out gas money to drive to work. That's roughly $100 dollars a month assuming you drive to places other than work. So now we're at 385. Now onto utility bills. Electric bills and gas bills can vary, But assuming you're not being wasteful. It'll be about $200 per month for both. We'll assume that the landlord doesn't charge them for the water bill cause that's how they do it in the area I'm using. So now we have $185. The bills are paid and we have a tiny bit of money to live off for the month. If any emergency pops up. We're screwed. But it's enough for us to start saving and building an emergency fund. So by looking at this, We can see that the minimum wage is the lowest possible employment contract that a person could honestly take. To even offer a lower contract would be unethical, Because people who lose their jobs get pressured by bills and their peers to find a job quick. People accept bad employment contracts all the time illegally. The problem with it is that people's time has a value, And if the pay doesn't match this value, Then the person is now stuck in a bad situation. This means that any business that cannot afford to pay the minimum wage is having a negative effect on the economy and we should not help them caue damage. Furthermore. There are programs that allow businesses to get tax breaks for employing disabled people or other disenfranchised groups. This means that the companies that have trouble with the minimum wage can employ these people instead and not only are they covering the cost, But they're helping disenfranchised groups. " Irrelevant. None of this speaks to a contention that the "Minimum Wage Creates Unemployment. " At best you offered your subjective estimation of that which could happen and could be addressed with government subsidy. What in your statement provides information to the effects of the minimum wage itself which you argue proves contrary to my proposition? "Onto families. So this one is more difficult because we're getting into supporting kids and public assitance. But I'l just put it like this. The cost of living per person goes up because there are heads in the house that can't work. Bills become higher and the rent becomes high because you need a bigger house now. If both parents work. It ends up with similar results to my earlier model but with the parents having slightly more money at the end of the month. However, Having kids means that the emergency fund is more important because emergency expenses will arrise more often. This is ONLY possible because of public assistance. Public assistance provides substantially more benefits to houses with children. Single people can usually only get a very small amount of food stamps. As low as $50/month sometimes. So if we took away minimum wage, We would just be passing the buck to the government and by extention, The tax payers. " Once again, This is irrelevant. None of this speaks to the effect of countering or refuting my proposition. The subject of this debate is the Minimum Wage's Creating Unemployment; it's not the significance of the Minimum Wage. Provide an argument to this effect. "I urge your to provide me with a source that shows a DIRECT correlation to unemployment and minimum wages. I need both data and practical implication of the data in your own words to accept this. " The regulation that is minimum wage law is fact that unemployment is created. When the law imposes an $8 dollar minimum for example it is prohibiting the legal employment of those whose marginal productivity fall below the set floor. And the increases in the minimum wage are argued to be adjustments for increases in the costs of living, Not an increase in worker productivity. (If a worker's output generates more commerce than the minimum wage, Employers will pay more, Or provide more compensation in the form of benefits or promotion. ) You have conveyed no understanding of the argument. The unemployment rate isn't the subject. Unemployment is. And I made sure to define unemployment in my opening argument. And I stipulated its description. And now we go to your source: https://onlinebusiness. Syr. Edu/blog/unemployment-minimum-wage/ This staff at syracuse hasn't shown any controls for the minimum wage. The analysis simply puts trends of the federal minimum wage and the unemployment rate side by side to see if there "appears" to be a correlation even when adjusted for inflation. Furthermore, The unemployment rate by the standards of the Bureau of Labor Statistics gauges unemployment for those out of work over at least a four week span. If they don't keep looking, They're not counted as part of the labor force. I'm going to state this as clearly as I can: the argument over which we argue is the proposition "The Minimum Wage Creates Unemployment. " It's not "The Minimum Wage Has Benefit to Families"; it's not "The Minimum Wage Addresses the cost of living"; It's not "Do changes in the Minimum Wage Increase or Decrease the Unemployment Rate. " Provide an argument that informs and substantiates your contention with the proposition.