Minimum Wage Laws In The USA Should Be Abolished

Concerns with Pro's Arguments It is, indeed, quite true that a law should be abolished if it doesn't accomplish, or works against its primary objective. However, the primary objective of minimum wage laws is not to reduce net poverty, nor net unemployment; rather, the goal of the minimum wage was (when it was initially passed) to "stabilize the post-depression economy and protect the workers in the labor force1." Protecting those whom are already employed would quite obviously affect unemployment in very little ways. A law aimed at creating jobs would be one directed at reducing poverty - the minimum wage laws, quite simply, are not such laws. The minimum wage laws entitle workers to a fair and living wage; it does not entitle the unemployed to reaping the benefits from such laws. So, are minimum wage laws simply laws that abandon those in poverty and those who are unemployed? Not quite. Rather, minimum wage laws specifically target those who work to ensure that our workforce is protected from wages that are below what is required to live and be in satisfactory health. The very first page of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is the bill's summary, and there is no single statement that states that minimum wage should reduce unemployment2. San Francisco has a minimum wage of $10.55. Interestingly, it has an unemployment rate of 5.6%3. Historically, minimum wage has been increased in the United States on multiple occasions. Each time, people argued that raising it would be catastrophic - however, decades later, the United States still has the largest GDP in the world. Raising the Minimum Wage would Not Affect Prices Dramatically A USDA study in 1998 found that a fifty cent increase in the minimum wage, including a liberal spill over effect, only increased food prices by less than 1%, and even less on a consumer level4. The difference between then and now, however, is that corporate executives have adopted a new philosophy that they are entitled to more of their corporate profits than they were back then. To clarify, between 1979 and 2007, the annual average income for the top 1% grew 156%5 6. The study goes even further to suggest that those in the top 0.1% witnessed income growths of 362%. The result of these executives taking more of the company’s profits for themselves is that there is less money to pay to basic workers. In effect, it is an intentional pay raise to justify refusing to pay higher wages to their workers. In spite of this travesty, raising minimum wage would still only increase prices slightly7, but bring many already-employed workers out of poverty8. A low minimum wage effectively discourages workers to work, so even if many corporate jobs were to open by the abolition of such laws, many people would refuse to take them out of feelings of entitlement to a living wage. To many, work has to have a purpose that goes deeper than just “it benefits the consumers,” or it “makes somebody else money.” 1 http://www.law.cornell.edu... 2 http://www.dol.gov... 3 https://www.google.com... 4 https://www.google.com... 5 http://www.epi.org... 6 http://www.theguardian.com... 7 http://abcnews.go.com... 8 http://nation.time.com...