Resolved: The United States Federal Government should raise the Federal Minimum wage standard to

Rebuttal 1: Wages and jobs I do not disagree with my opponent’s source in regards to cut down jobs however I disagree that this directly had any relevance to minimum wage (MW). The claim made was this: “500,000 jobs lost due to the cutting of jobs in order for business can still compete with others at low prices.” This debate is in regards to the US. The topic that my opponent and there source is referencing to here is not necessarily MW - it is most likely to be globalization, which is a completely different issue. You cannot necessarily look at evidence and jump to the conclusion that it is in regards to MW in the US. Globalization is defined as the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale [1]. The reason that this could be interpreted as being a reference to globalization is because the huge negative side of the globalization debate is that companies in the US are getting their manufacturing factories in LEDCs in order to save money. This is resulting in unemployment in the US [2]. Globalization occurred at a similar time as to the time that my opponent describes it as in the graph and their argument [3]. Since unemployment correlates with the expansion of globalization and the raising of the MW and globalization occurred at the same time, this means that it is part of my opponent’s burden to show me why this is due to the MW and not globalization. This negates this contention in a number of ways. It negates my opponent’s argument in regards to the MW correlating with unemployment. My opponent’s argument in relation to teen unemployment is easily negated. The MW does not necessarily affect employment [4]. “... the research of two economists, David Card and Alan Krueger, then both at Princeton. They argued that the actual evidence linking the minimum wage to job losses was weak. More important, they offered new analyses concluding that the minimum wage – at the levels observed in the United States – had no effect on employment, and might even raise it! Their seminal study compared employment in fast-food restaurants in two adjacent states, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, after New Jersey raised its minimum wage...” [4] The article is strongly backed up and is written by Alan Manning who is a professor of economics at LSE and director of the communities programme in the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE. The MW will not affect jobs and employment negatively, in fact, it is possible that it could create a positive effect, as described. Since we have conflicting evidence we need to resort to the reliability of our sources in comparison to each other. My source was written by a professor on the LSE website. If you curious as to what LSE is then I will explain. LSE stands for London School of Economics. It is considered to be as good as Oxford, Cambridge and UCL [5]. Now let’s make a comparison to my opponent’s source. This was written by Randall Hoven, who fails to even have a degree in the subject that he is writing in [6]. It was titled, graph of the day, implying that it is something that is written daily and therefore needs to be written in a day. Mine, on the other hand was written as part of Alan Manning’s PhD. Therefore my source is superior to my opponent’s. Rebuttal 2: Inflation It is evident that we shouldn’t make the MW $20 per hour or any higher. I do agree upon this point. You do realize that $15, $20 and $1 million are different amounts of money, right? My opponent then brings in the job loss myth. “three economists involved in producing the report, distinguished between employment effects on: teenagers (ages 16-19), where they concluded that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduced teen employment, most plausibly, from between zero and 1.5 percent; young adults (ages 20-24), where they believed the employment impact is “negative and smaller than that for teenagers”; and adults, where the “direction of the effect...is uncertain in the empirical work as it is in the theory.” [7] This report was produced by economists working for the government in a large research case study on whether or not the MW actually reduces employment. This is probably considered to be one of the most reliable studies on the MW because unlike most sources this is not a page long, it is 23 pages long in size 8 font. In other words, it’s a lot of research. The conclusion of the article goes as follows: “Economists have conducted hundreds of studies of the employment impact of the minimum wage. Summarizing those studies is a daunting task, but two recent meta-studies analyzing the research conducted since the early 1990s concludes that the minimum wage has little or no discernible effect on the employment prospects of low-wage workers” [7] We can conclude from this evidence that the MW has little or no effect on unemployment in the US. My opponent then makes the fatal mistake of interlocking his contentions. This is where his whole argument fails: P1: Contention 1 says: (x) P2: Contention 2 interlocks is supported by Contention 1 P3: Contention 1 is refuted sufficiently C1: Contention 1 no longer stands C2: Contention 2 is no longer supported and therefore does not stand. As you can see, my opponent’s argument does not stand based on the following syllogism. My opponent then continues by making assumptions about my case. I am not advocating the continuous raising of the MW. If the MW was increased to $15 per hour, then I would not advocate a MW raise because I would be satisfied with the current MW. Due to this, it is not part of my burden to respond to the Zimbabwe part of this argument because it is irrelevant to the resolution being discussed. Rebuttal 3: Inflation and global trade There is a much more well sourced explanation to what you are suggesting. Whilst my opponent has simply found a graph with MW and dollar value together, there is a lot of evidence suggesting contrary to your case. The most likely explanation: “The nation’s money supply is constantly being expanded.” [8] Now let’s look at a comparison of the money supply expansion and when that started in comparison to when the value of a dollar decreased. “in 1913 something changed, and the U.S. dollar started down a long, steady road of devaluations. Using the U.S. government’s own figures, to obtain the same amount of purchasing power of $100 in 1913, you would need over $2,000 today.” [8] Similarly,the US dollar value began to decrease in that exact year but only a small rate [8,9]. Then once the nation’s money supply began to increase at a consistent (but considerably large rate), the US dollar began to decrease more rapidly. My opponent’s graph only goes from 1955 which just shows its unreliability since the US dollar value began to to decrease in value starting in 1913 [8]. The MW in the US was only introduced 1938 [10]. That is 35 years after the US dollar value began to deplete [8]. I agree that prices are higher but that is an issue separate to this debate. The MW clearly has no relevance to your graph and your main argument and your contention falls apart because of this. Conclusion My opponent has used weak sources to support his case whilst I have provided strong research that are well backed up to support mine. He appears to have confused the issue of globalization with MW. This would be a stronger case if it was in regards to globalization since a lot of what he is saying is true but has no relevance to the MW, as my arguments and sources describe in detail. I await his rebuttals. Sources in comments.