The minimum wage is a necesary rigth for working Americans.

Ok, I'll present my 1st argument, then depending on rebuttal, I may add or leave the same. 1) Whenever politicians wish to score political points, they recommend raising the minimum wage. Parading as champions of the poor and downtrodden, they cry out against all those selfish and greedy employers who are paying less-than-subsistence wages to their employees. The truth is that whenever public officials enact or raise a minimum wage, the only people who get harmed are the very people who are supposedly helped-those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. In every voluntary economic exchange, both parties benefit. Each party to the transaction gives up something he values less for something he values more. If such were not the case, he wouldn't enter into the transaction. The principle applies to labor relations. When an employer and employee voluntarily enter into working relationship, both of them benefit. The employer values the employee's work product more than he values the money he is paying the worker. The employee values the money more than he values the time and energy he is devoting to the business. Let's assume that a certain employer offers to pay a job applicant $2 an hour and that the applicant refuses to take the job. We can assume that the applicant values his time more than he values the money. What if the applicant offers to work for $5 an hour and the employer refuses? Here, the employer values his money more than he values the work product of the employee. All of sudden, politicians step in with a law that requires employers to pay a minimum wage of $5 an hour. Is poverty alleviated? Is "exploitation" eradicated? Is the worker helped? No. After all, a minimum-wage law does not force an employer to hire an applicant. The law simply says that if an employer hires an applicant, he must pay the legally established rate of $5 an hour. Which applicants will get hired? Only those workers whom an employer would have been willing to pay $5 an hour anyway. In other words, if an employer values the money ($5 an hour) less than he values the work product of the employee, he'll hire the employee. But in such a case, the minimum-wage law is superfluous because the employee would have been hired in the absence of the law. What if an employer values the money ($5 an hour) more than he values the person's work product? Then he doesn't employ him and, thus, the minimum-wage law has accomplished nothing. So, what's the problem? The problem is that the minimum-wage law locks out of the labor market all of those people whose labor is valued by employers at less than the legally established minimum wage. For example, suppose an employer and a worker both wish to enter into a working relationship at $4 an hour. The minimum-wage law prohibits them from doing so. Thus, the worker is condemned to unemployment and the employer loses the value of his labor services. So, how would wages ever rise in the absence of minimum-wage laws? There is one and only one way that wages can rise in a society: through the accumulation of capital. With capital, workers become more productive. A farm worker who uses a tractor will produce more than his counterpart who uses a hoe. And more productivity means more money with which to pay higher wages. Doesn't this mean then that employees are at the mercy of the kindness and benevolence of employers to pay them higher wages when they produce more? No. What motivates even the most self-seeking, profit-grabbing employers to pay higher wages is the prospect of competitors' bidding away their workers. After all, if in the absence of minimum-wage laws, employers would pay only subsistence wages or less, then why do so many businesses today pay their employees more than the minimum wage? Competition in the labor market, not kindness or generosity, forces employers to pay the higher wages. The key to raising standards of living then, especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder, is (1) to prohibit governments from "helping the poor" by confiscating massive amounts of income and capital from the rich and middle class and (2) to prohibit government from "helping the poor" with economic regulations like the minimum wage. 2) The vast majority of economists believe the minimum wage law costs the economy thousands of jobs. The most fundamental principle of economics is 'supply and demand'. In the case of labor, this means that the supply of workers goes up as wage goes up, and the demand for workers by employers goes down as the wage goes up. For example, imagine a janitorial job was advertised for hire. If the wage is $100 per hour, thousands of people would want the job. If the wage was $1 per hour, you probably wouldn't find anyone to do it. Conversely, if the government forced the employer to pay at least $7 per hour, the employer might decide not to hire a janitor at all, instead opting to have other staff pick up the duties. Thus, a job would be lost because of the minimum wage. Another example is restaurant employment. A manager might have $10,000 in her monthly budget to hire bus persons. If the wage is set at $7 per hour, the manager may only be able to hire 10 bus people instead of 15. Setting a mandated wage limit disrupts market forces of supply and demand. Just because there is no minimum wage doesn't mean companies can pay whatever they want. Would you work a dishwashing job that paid 25 cents per hour? Would anyone? If they raised the wage to $4 per hour, they might be able to hire a high school student. Consider some highly skilled jobs such as accountant, lawyer, and engineer. Do these people make $5.15 an hour? Obviously, the answer is no. Market factors of supply and demand determine how many jobs are available and what each job would pay. In summary, as the minimum wage goes up, the number of people employed goes down. When the minimum wage goes down, the number of people employed goes up. Keep in mind: the minimum wage only applies if someone is employed. 3) There has been a lot of attention lately on the subject of job "outsourcing", where U.S. companies hire foreign workers instead of Americans. When businesses outsource American jobs, they're not doing it because they hate America; they're doing it because they're trying to cut costs. When you increase the price of labor in America, you create an additional incentive for businesses to hire Canadian, Mexican, or other foreign workers. The best way to stop outsourcing of jobs is to provide the best conditions for doing business in America. A minimum wage just makes things tougher for companies to do business in America. 4) The minimum wage can drive some small companies out of business. Many people believe businesses have endless supplies of cash and can easily withstand minimum wage increases or other cost increases. Unfortunately, that's simply not the case. Over 90 percent of businesses fold within the first few years. Every time there is a recession, thousands of businesses go under. Restaurants, which pay wages at or near the minimum wage level, have the highest rate of failure of any business type. Anytime you increase the costs of businesses, you push them closer to the edge. Let's take an example. Imagine a small neighborhood hardware store. This hardware store isn't going to have the logistics and economy of scale advantages of say, Wal-Mart; thus, it must charge more. It probably makes up the price difference with better service. When you raise the minimum wage, it increases the operating costs for that hardware store even more. Thus, it must raise it's prices to cover costs. Eventually, prices get so high that customers conclude that shopping there isn't worth the additional cost. Slowly, the local hardware store is driven out of business. -I stand ready for next round.