Minimum Wage Should Not Be Raised

Let me start off by stating that the minimum wage was ordained in 1938 at 25 cents per hour, which adjusted for inflation would equal to over $4 today. Minimum wage jobs are by no means meant as a career. A minimum wage job, for the most part, demands a low skilled worker, which usually equates to the younger population. The very first topic you brought up is the fact that people with families should not be subjected to low pay. These people know willingly that they are making little money, and that they have no skill or education to make more money. They still decide to have a family, and then demand higher wages to fit their inadequate decision making/ Firstly, raising the minimum wage on a federal level would result in the loss of over 500,000 jobs. In an economy that is getting more dependent on the skills of a worker, which almost always equates to their level of education, minimum wage jobs are in decline. We have technology that can very well replace minimum wage workers, and these machines have already sprung up in cities that have increased their wages tremendously. Raising minimum wage inadvertently forces small business to cut jobs as well as hours for those that remain. It also drives up prices tremendously, as employers have to pay more money to their workers, which cuts back on overall profit. The main argument that you can, and that you will make is that people who work these jobs cannot afford necessities. Most "necessities" are created by people who work minimum wage jobs. These products would increase in cost, as the employers have to match wage costs with increased profit. This not only hurts the company, as it creates unnecessary and unwarranted competition that is legislated by a supreme ruling body, but it also hurts the employees. Private businesses and industry is already raising wages. Many businesses pay more money then the required minimum, such as IKEA, which is a multi-billion dollar company that employs dozens of thousands of people. It"s not clear that it"s constitutional. The Supreme Court, in its opinion in the 1923 case Adkins v. Children"s Hospital of District of Columbia, made a strong argument that a minimum wage was a violation of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of contract embedded in the Fifth Amendment"s language about due process and the deprivation of liberty and property: "To the extent that the sum fixed exceeds the fair value of the services rendered, it amounts to a compulsory exaction from the employer for the support of a partially indigent person, for whose condition there rests upon him no peculiar responsibility, and therefore, in effect, arbitrarily shifts to his shoulders a burden which, if it belongs to anybody, belongs to society as a whole. " You talk about people who live in poverty. First, many people who live in poverty do not work, and would thus be unaffected by an increase in the minimum wage. In addition, workers who earn the minimum wage are generally not the primary breadwinners in their households. They are secondary earners " an elderly parent earning some retirement income or a spouse with a part-time job. Or they are young people living with their parents. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that while workers under age 25 make up only about 20% of those who earn hourly wages, they constitute about half of all workers earning the minimum wage or less. Raising the minimum wage is therefore an ineffective anti-poverty proposal. You see, there is only one argument to make for minimum wage increases, and that is people living in poverty. By increasing wages, which then increases overall income, it would make eligibility for certain programs almost nonexistent. There is a program here in Chicago, called After School Matters, and it is a charity based program created to compensate poor youths for work that they do. The most you can make (household) to get accepted is 60,000. Granted that both parents are working, a minimum wage increase would take away all possibilities into these programs. Not only that, but it would bypass the federal income tax level. People would then make more money, which would force them into paying more in taxes. They would always have to pay more in products, as I mentioned previously. Social programs such as Medicare and Welfare would become useless, as many would pass the threshold and would not receive any more federal or local benefits. Sources: . http://www.politifact.com... . https://www.aei.org...