Raising the minimum wage

First of all, I do recognize that statement 1 and 2 contradict each other, so please allow me to make myself clearer, these are two separate scenarios that could happen. 1 of which is bound to happen if the other doesn"t, but no, both scenarios would not co-exist. Next I have numbered each category to correspond with the title PRO has given it. I. I would first like to note the Pro does not specify what the original minimum wage was when he mentioned a modest increase to $10.10 an hour. I will assume however, being that he said modest, and using the closest rounded number, he meant from $10 an hour therefore talking about a ten cent increase in the minimum wage. Please note otherwise if I have assumed wrong. But seeing as this is all I have to go off for now, I will. If the purpose of raising the minimum wage is to provide workers with more money (which is why many people are in favor of raising the minimum wage) what is the point of such a small increase? Now I do understand that over a very large period of time an extra 10 cents an hour does become a significant amount, but it would take a long time (we"re talking years). Therefore making it pointless to raise the minimum wage and quite frankly a waste of time. But if it is raised a significant amount (with a goal to provide the workers more money), I stand when I say that it could result in the laying off of some workers. You see, con has failed to take something very important into account here: human nature. Yes employers CAN reduce their own profits in order to be more efficient, but let"s face it the majority of people wouldn"t want to do that, they would rather look out for themselves then take a pay cut so that they can afford to keep their employees. Now I understand I said more employees means more efficiency which means more product- which means more money in the long run, however most people don"t look at the long run, they look at the short run. Therefore, while not all of them will, many employers will probably sooner lay off employees than reduce their profits. Now lets move on to Pro"s second solution: more efficient technologies. This would cost money just as keeping employees would. I understand it would cost less money, but it would still cost some money resulting in the loss of even more employees. -MPC From what I understand, PRO is saying that because people earning minimum wage tend to spend all or most of their income, earning more means they will spend more meaning more money in the employers will eventually get the money back, however this is a long term effect (and as I said before, most people look in the short run) therefore Employers are still likely to lay off employees. Even if there is a higher minimum wage, there are now less people earning it because there are now more unemployed, meaning that there is no boost in the economy because there isn"t extra money circulating the economy, because basically worker A is just earning their own wage plus part of worker B"s wage. The only difference being that less people are spending the money. -In response to what Pro said about paying poverty level wages: Pro refuses to realize something here: Setting a minimum wage in order to assure people get paid the right amount for their labor is difficult" why? Because every type of labor is different" therefore if this was really the problem minimum wage was trying to solve then each specific job would require a different minimum wage than others. Therefore we must recognize that minimum wage is not going to keep workers from being employed below their marginal product of labor. Therefore we must conclude that the point of minimum wage is not what PRO has stated it is (to keep people from being employed below their marginal product of labor). Therefore, if we raised the minimum wage with PRO"s reasoning in mind, it would be impossible to achieve such a goal as I have stated because you would have to look at each job individually. -In regards to what pro said about employees being more productive if minimum wage was increased, what makes employees productive is incentive, not what has already been given them. If they are given a raise just because their employers are required to they are not going to be more productive, just like a child won"t clean their room just because their parents got them a new toy, however the child would be more likely to clean their room if the parents told them they would get them a new toy AFTER it was clean. In the same way, if a worker wants to be paid more they will be more productive, they however will not just decide to be more productive because they are being paid more- after all they can"t be threatened to be paid less because their "raise" (which is actually a raise in minimum wage) can"t be taken away. II. I would like to point out that I did indeed mean the law of supply and demand, because they go hand in hand, and I actually did refer to the law of supply (if you will note I said "if the demand goes up, price must go up because of the limited amount of supply") This is why it is called the law of supply and demand because it refers to how the demand has affected the supply (requiring a change in price in order to reach equilibrium). As you will note if you look back to my first statement in round 2, I have cleared up the contradiction so I will now move to the next section. III.I would like to take a moment to point everyone"s attention back to the topic of the argument. The topic was about Increasing Minimum wage, not having a minimum wage itself, so the question which is the third point presented by PRO is irrelevant. My statement was not the minimum wage creates inflation, it was that increasing it will. Reading on though, PRO does seem to address my original statement that INCREASING the minimum wage creates inflation. However the statement that PRO used from Sara Lemos in his argument only proves my point (please refer back to it at this point as I do not have enough characters to repeat it). The very definition of inflation according to investipedia.com is: "The rate at which the general level of prices for goods and services is rising, and, subsequently, purchasing power is falling." I understand, however, that PRO mentioned they were referring to my concern of reduction in employment, therefore, that statement should have been mentioned in the first category and is irrelevant to this category. Taking that statement, however, and disregarding that it was put in the wrong category, PRO has basically just admitted that one of my two theories of what would happen should we increase the minimum wage is correct (the inflation theory.). IV. PRO is correct, I am merely offering a hypothetical scenario, and am using small numbers (that aren"t realistic) in order to make the scenario easier to comprehend. However the scenario has been set up in such a manner to project what would indeed happen in reality so it steal stands applicable. I understand Pro has brought up the contradiction again, therefore I again point you to the first statement I made in round 2 in order to solve this dilemma (in case you have forgotten, otherwise please continue). Next I stand my ground on inflation which I previously defended. Third, Pro is refusing here to recognize the law of supply and demand which is when demand goes up price must go up, there is a limited amount of supply, therefore you cannot not always increase supply to meet demand, therefore you must increase the price. V.First of all, I would again like to point out we are not arguing minimum wage itself, just raising it. So I would like to deem the part of his argument that address minimum wage itself irrelevant. As for the part addressing minimum wage INCREASE, if you refer to pro"s last quotation it only proves my point. You see as I cleared up in my first statement, either employment or inflation would happen in the case of minimum wage increase,which PRO proves through his quotes.