Raising the minimum wage hurts the economy

Thank you for your argument. Before I talk about my opponent’s arguments and offer some of my own, I’d like to address burden of proof. I take the stance of rejecting the claim, "raising the minimum wage hurtsthe economy." I must show that it’s more reasonable to reject this than accept it. There are two basic reasons to reject a claim. The first is a lack of evidence for it, the second is evidence against it. If Pro does not provide valid evidence that the minimum wage harms the economy, then you should vote Con. If he does, and I provide more convincing evidence of lack of harm, you should vote Con. C1 & C2 I will address both of Pro’s contentions at once. Conceding nothing regarding their factual content, they are irrelevant to this debate. Substituting provided definitions, the proposition Pro must defend is “Raising the minimum wage hurts a US national economy, resources, generally jobs and money.” Pro must show that raising the minimum wage hurts the economy in general, as a whole. He has not done so. His entire approach relies on the economic well-being of sub-groups within the population which may or may not be representative of the entire economy. He has yet to make that link, and until he does, these contentions carry no weight and can be dismissed, leaving him with no argument. I’ll go further and say that the teen argument is misleading as only a small portion of minimum wage earners are teens, with the majority being adults trying to support themselves and their families.[1] I'll label my arguments N1, N2, N3, for the sake of clarity. N1. The minimum wage is historically low. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage peaked at $10.47 an hour in 1967, as compared to its $7.25 currently. This decline has happened while worker productivity has increased. If we were to link how much workers were paid to their actual productivity (their worth, if you will), the minimum wage would be $21.72 per hour. Similarly, if we linked minimum wage to GDP growth, the minimum wage would be $20[2]. Since this shows a noticeable gap between the low income workers and the growth of the economy, it’s interesting to note where the shares of growth are going [3]: (I join my opponent in a huzzah for graphs!) Unless Pro is going to present evidence that the declining real minimum wage and increasing income inequality has boosted the economy, we’ve got plenty of room to raise it now. N2. The minimum wage doesn’t hurt the economy through job loss We have to be careful of correlation/causation fallacies. There are a lot of things going on with our economy at once, and if the nominal minimum wage has risen while employment has dropped, Pro will need to exclude other factors before he can claim a causal link. However, when we look at studies that do exclude other factors, we find that there simply is no such link. One of the most rigorous and controlled studies looking at 500 counties over 20 years and found that there is no link between higher minimum wage and less jobs [4]. More specifically, studies that focus on teens tend to not control for factors such as differences among states and economic upheaval. When those are taken into account, “minimum wage increases—in the range that have been implemented in the United States—do not reduce employment among teens.[5]” N3. The minimum wage boosts the economy Having found no link between job loss and minimum wage, let’s look at the positive aspects. First, states whose minimum wages are higher than the federal minimum wage tend to have faster job growth then states that don’t [6]. Illinois in particular raised its minimum wage slightly by $0.35 in 2005 and saw marginal job growth, however, “in 2005 when it increased its minimum wage by a full dollar to $6.50 per hour. Illinois' job growth of 0.96 percent closed the gap with its Midwestern neighbors and was substantially better than the other two comparably large Midwestern states: Ohio had only 0.21 percent employment growth and Michigan still had a small decline of -0.02 percent.[7]” Other studies confirm this in a variety of environments. A study using World Bank data showed “At low minimum wages an increase in the minimum wage stimulates economic growth. At higher minimum wages we find no effect on growth.[8]” An analysis of Indonesia’s success with minimum wages suggests that in, “a time of growth in Indonesia, when sticky wages may have limited wage growth” a minimum wage helped the workforce move to a solid high-wage, high-consumption equilibrium.[9] Given that in the US, GDP and productivity continues to grow, but real wages are sticky downwards, the relevance is clear. In conclusion, Pro has not provided evidence that raising the minimum wage would hurt the economy. The evidence I have presented shows that it would have a neutral or positive effect. [1] http://www.epi.org... [2] http://m.cjr.org... [3] http://motherjones.com... [4] http://nelp.3cdn.net... [5] http://www.irle.berkeley.edu... [6] http://www.fiscalpolicy.org... [7] http://www.ibrc.indiana.edu... [8] http://www.tau.ac.il... [9] http://www.econ.yale.edu...