The minimum wage should be raised

"My opponent claims that if we raise the minimum wage, that it would make such a difference that it would make employers not want to hire any laborers." My argument against the minimum wage is primarily an argument on economic principle, not an actual dollar amount - I am not arguing that raising the minimum wage to $15/hr is bad but $10/hr is good. I will remind Pro that we are debating "the minimum wage should be raised" and not "the minimum wage should be raised by X". "Therefore I can argue that we should increase the wage by one cent." Pro did not understand point 1 in my first argument, which was referring to the basic economic principle of of price vs demand. It doesn't matter what the amount of increase is, be it $5 or 1 cent. When the price of anything increases, demand for that good or service decreases. "And a one cent difference to someone"s wage, will not deter an employer from hiring someone." In fact, all other things being equal, an employer will hire someone who will do the job for $10.00 over someone who will do the job for $10.01. Pro is also suggesting that $0.01/hr increase in wages adds no significant cost to running a business, so let's crunch some numbers for fun: The number hours worked by full time employee: 40 The number of hours worked per year: 2080 The increase per year per employee: $20.08 Now let's take a look at what that would cost Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart employees: 2.1 million [2] Total increase in labor cost: $43,680,000/yr And that's just one cent - proponents of the minimum wage are currently fighting to DOUBLE the current minimum wage. So yes, in fact, even one cent can have very large ramifications to operating a business which might cause the business to think about downsizing it's labor force. "people also want things like education, clothes, and better food and be able to enjoy themselves." I'm sure that most people - those who may not even be of working age at all - want these things too. I'm not too sure how that fit's in to a discussion about the "livable" minimum wage, since what you are describing is not what is livable, but what is the minimum luxury. If it is luxury that you want for low paid workers, perhaps you should consider donating a certain percentage of YOUR income every week to the poor, otherwise what you are essentially demanding is that business owners pay charity on your behalf. The minimum wage is not charity and should never be viewed as such. "...if a mother is raising a children working as a fast food worker, this wage is unlivable." Pro will need to provide a citation of the case in question where a mother who works as a fast food worker while raising a family perished due to the fact that the wage she was being paid was in fact "unlivable". "Most minimum-wage workers aren't teenagers these days. They're major breadwinners who need a higher minimum wage in order to keep their families out of poverty." I invite Pro to revisit point 3 in my first argument and to at least observe the first 2 pages of the cited source, as these are direct refutations to this claim. "If this affects only 4% of people, then that mitigates the problems with raising the minimum wage." The minimum wage affects 100% of the labor market. "More jobs and faster growth." If raising the minimum wage created positive economic growth, and we could raise it to whatever we pleased, why stop at $15? Why not $20? Why not $2,000? [1] http://thehill.com... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com...