Raising Minimum Wage

First of all, you say that you are one of these minimum wage employees who are fighting for a better life with your family...let me say that I understand your frustration and whatever our economy decides, I hope that great opportunities find you and your family. With that being said, I , too, once felt your frustration. I worked full time during a large chunk of my college days. There were times that I worked 16 hours straight and then had to spend 8 hours in school, only to return to work immediately after. To tie this in with what my competitor has stated in their last argument, I am speaking from my own experiences when talking about the cons of raising minimum wage. I have seen the effects first hand and have felt the effects in regards to my own pay checks. My comments also comes from my studies in economics and history classes, as I have a degree in social sciences. History has proven that most of the time these drastic changes does not provide the results that many expected. Basic economics will tell you that if when you put that much money into consumers' pockets, you will usually get inflation. If you do not believe me, just look at our economy over the last 50 years. Prices are drastically risen though the years. A 5 cent loaf of break now costs $2.99....why? Because the people that make that bread are paying their employees more money than they did 50 years ago. This coincides with something called COLA (cost of living adjustment). As people begin to make more money, companies are forced to raise the prices of their products to compensate for the extra expense. A perfect example of this would be Germany in the 1920s. Germany had to pay an unbelievable amount of money to the Allied nations for "causing" World War I. Germany was not able to keep up with their payments, so they began to print more money. More money means that you can pay your bills easier, right? Wrong...when Germany began to increase the money supply, the value of that money decreased (the basics of supply and demand). Eventually, there was so much money in the German economy that the money was worthless. It was literally cheaper to burn a pile of money in the winter to stay warm and it was to buy kerosene or oil for a lamp or furnace. Whenever you put more money into the economy, you will usually get inflation. Let me use another historical example that proves that putting more money into people's pockets will solve all of our problems: when the recession hit in 2008, President Bush wanted to find a way to put more money into people's pockets. More money meant that people would spend more, which would kick start the economy. Therefore, most every worker received an additional income tax return (basically it doubled the amount that each person received on their returns). Families received hundreds and thousands of unexpected dollars to add to their pockets, but did it end the recession? Absolutely not. If nothing else, it prolonged the recession. These are actually historical events that proves that things such as raising minimum wage, printing more money, etc. hinders the very people it is supposed to help. Nevertheless, I have dug up other sources as well, as my opponent has suggested, to back up my comments. Forbes printed an article two years ago from economist Jeffrey Dorfman, who is a professor of economics that the University of Georgia and is a consultant for various companies and local governments. Dorfman analyzed a set of polls that were given to the public on the basis of raising minimum wage. When asked the question whether they supported raising minimum wage, 67% of the people said yes. As the question was re-phrased, the results changed. Applying real-world effects of raising the minimum wage, the next question was "What if minimum wage caused some employers to lay off workers or hire fewer workers?" The support dropped to 39%. When re-phrasing the question again to ask "What about if raising the minimum wage caused some employers to raise prices?", the results were split to 51% voting yes. Dorfman's article is not completely based on a poll. He states the issue of "where would this extra money come from?" In order to pay employees a higher wage, how would businesses get that money? It is true that some businesses would be able to afford the higher wages with little effect, but most do not. So I will ask the question, how do these businesses compensate for paying the higher wages. In my experience, either they hire fewer workers or they cut hours...which is what happened to me. [1] I can provide other sources in the next round, as I am running out of text. To conclude this round, I would like to respond to a couple of accusations: I am not ignorant on the matter nor am I looking to hurt anyone. Competition and a free market has ALWAYS been the best solution to these issues. 1. http://www.forbes.com...