Minimum Wage

Thank you for your argument, and good luck! "1. Prevents companies from taking advantage of employees, especially immigrants" How exactly do you think it stops companies from taking advantage of employees? "2. The logic of allowing companies to decide wage is flawed" How so? I believe that the government should be as little as possible while still being able to maintain order and all that. Should the governments be able to decide if somebody gets a $100 wage, because they supposedly know better than the company? "Without some regulation, companies would be able to choose their own wages for employees." Exactly... "In factory working jobs, for example, without a minimum wage, the company could pay the employee $1 dollar an hour." Yeah, but remember: the employee doesn't have to work there if they want more than $1 an hour. Also, if they are able to pay their employees $1 an hour, they would likely also change the price of their shoes (or whatever they are making) down since they have less wages they need to spend (they don't have as much money used for wages, so they can lower prices and lose a little bit of money while not having to use that lost money for wages [if you don't understand, I'll try to reexplain this next time].) "Since they cannot get other, higher paying jobs, they WILL take the $1 an hour wage." Well, $1 is better than nothing. Also, not every restaurant/factory or whatever will pay $1. Some restaurants pay more than minimum wage if they are doing well and have enough money. Also, again, if minimum wage is abolished, prices will go down. Before minimum wage, (it was introduced in 1938) there were dime stores believe it or not! Instead of more expensive dollar stores, things could be sold for a dime or less! Like I said, without minimum wage, everyone can lower their prices. Again, they could look for places that choose to pay more than $1. Also, if there are 50 job openings, but only 40 workers looking for a job in a particular area, the companies will have to do some competing for the workers, which means they would probably have to pay them more than $1 anyway. "Companies took advantage of their employees because they could [during the Industrial Revolution]." To be honest, I forget most of the stuff I learned about the Industrial Revolution, but I looked it up, and it ended in about 1840. Many things have changed since then. Also, what about after 1840? Companies didn't always take complete advantage of their employees. "But this only applies to jobs in such high demand. People with only the skills for jobs in low demand are likely to be taken advantage of." Let me ask you this, how many "Now Hiring" signs have you seen around stores, restaurants, etc. have you seen recently? They aren't that rare (where I live). Those kinds of jobs are still in high demand, so the companies would still need to compete on prices. Also, believe it or not, abolishing minimum wage would make more jobs. Instead of paying 10 workers $100 (I'm making these mubers up), companies could half their wage and employ another 10 workers while only having to pay $100. With these extra employees, maybe (say at a restaurant), they could make more food faster, which makes more customers want to come because the lines are shorter, so they get more money, so they can lower prices, so they get even more customers, so maybe now they can get a new location... (this seems extreme, but it could happen). Along the way, they might decide to bump up the employees' wages some to share the wealth. (I used the example of a restaurant because I thought it would be easier to picture and explain.) There are a bunch of restaurants everywhere, so they still need employees, so they could still be in high demand in a way. "Waiters and waitresses are not paid minimum wage... the employer who gets away with paying their waiters $2 an hour." Again, if minimum wage was abolished, prices would go down which would let them live off of $2 an hour. Also, if they didn't like being a waiter/waitress, they could be cashier, hamburger flipper, Walmart employee, etc. Also, if someone wants to be paid $1 an hour and the employer is willing to hire them, why should the government make it illegal? That person could be out of a job if the employer won't/can't pay them minimum wage if their company isn't doing well enough. Also, not everyone would depend on a $1 an hour job. Some people are willing to do those sorts of things especially if they are just a high school/college kid who wants a job with flexible hours and doesn't care how much they make, but just want to make something, or maybe they just want experience. Here is a quote I found: "Ironically, it is legal to hire an unpaid intern in many circumstances. The intern would be willing to work for no pay just to gain experience. But if the company offered to pay the intern $5 an hour, then the transaction all of a sudden becomes illegal." Don't you agree that this is a problem? If somebody wants to pay and intern $5 out of the kindness of their heart even though they don't need to do that, isn't it wrong to make that illegal because of minimum wage? It just hurts the intern; it does not help them whatsoever. https://www.wealthdaily.com... (I thought this was a decent article if you want to read it.) Also, I'm probably committing a fallacy here, but my sister took economics in college, and in that class, they went over why minimum wage is bad in detail, and it wasn't an argument/debate or whatever because they had enough facts and all that to prove why it was bad for the economy. It wasn't just the professor's opinion or whatever. (She had an online book, but it expired by now.) "Being honest, I realized through research that I would rater debate whether we should RAISE the minimum wage but after this debate, I'll just make a new one." You could debate that in this debate if you want. but you don't have to do that. I would be willing to do another debate if you want to do another one. Anyway, I await your response, and good luck! https://www.economicshelp.org... (This article has some words you probably don't know [neither do I], but you can look at it if you want.)