Minimum Wage

Thanks, CON. CON's CaseCON asserts that the MW hurts jobs and kills small businesses. This is untrue, and I've provided plenty of evidence, including several meta-analyses such as Doucouliagos and T.D. Stanley (2009), Card and Krueger (1994), and Belam and Wolfson (2014). All of these find that the MW *does not* negatively impact employment. CON has nothing to balance against these, so there's no tangible impact of his arguments. Thus, you're voting PRO on employment. Next, his analogy is highly flawed and makes several assumptions. An anecdote cannot possibly supplant assumptions, and that he is attempting to opine on behavioral psychology without substantiation is enough to toss out the contention. The goal of the Monopoly game, of course, is to quite literally drive people out of business: an example of rent-seeking (1)(2), i.e., a business using its resources in an effort to earn a benefit without recepricating. In the process, players are actually able to, on a whim, subsume as much market power as they want via purchasing land, but CON cannot rightly use this board game as a microcosm for the real world. Firstly, he doesn't actually prove that this anecdote has any real bearing on real-world business behavior, which would require evidence from behavioral economics. Secondly, he doesn't acknowledge that companies that employ MW workers are in deep competition for customers - which is why, in many cases, any of the prices increases that might result are extremely small, as research by Sara Lemos shows (3) - and that actively engaging in rent-seeking via political lobbying would significantly damage their reputation, and thus their customer base may flee. Thirdly, this analysis presumes that the MW actually hurts employment. Beause I've provided plenty of evidence that it does not, you can toss this contention out. Fourthly, he not only pulls $15 out of the sky - i.e., the resolution concerns *some* MW, not a certain MW - but he fails to acknowledge that this would apply to *all* companies, not just some. In other words, even if businesses actively tried to raise the MW to hurt their competitors, they too would bear the same burden. If the MW is actually harmful as CON contends, this would be a counter-productive measure. Fifthly, lobbying for political influnce is only possible if there's a genuine chance of politicians passing favorable legislation. However, the U.S. Congress has been deadlocked for years, and thus even if CON's other assumptions held - and they don't - this example isn't realistic. CON contends that, because of skill disparities amongst workers, the "cheaper" worker may be able to clinch a job by offering his labor at a lower wage. However, there are several problems with this example. First, skill set and productivity are variable. For instance, if I am a business owner I can boost your productivity by enrolling you in a class or purchasing better machinery for you to use, and I can hinder your productivity by depriving you of lunch breaks. That there's this tangible amount that people are "worth" is false, and is belied by my evidence showing that, as productivity over the past three decades has nearly doubled, wages did not grow in tandem, but in fact stagnated and real terms and fell for MW workers. If the MW grew with productivity sinc 1968, it would have been $21.72 in 2012, not $7.25, which is even below what it would be if it were inflation-adjusted (4). In fact, if it grew at the same pace as pay of the 1 percent, it would be $33.14 (5). That pay has increased so substantially for the top 1 percnt of earners, but not MW workers, demonstrates Karl Marx's notion of surplus value - that to earn a wage of Y, you must have a productivity of X + Y, in which case the remaining X is the surplus profit that employers subsume for their employees (6). (In other words, people are *not* treated the same because of the declining real value of the MW). In that sense, then, the MW is merely adjusting for deferentials in bargaining power. Finally, CON's analogy is flawed if we cross-apply my evidence on the efficiency wage hypothesis, whereby paying workers higher wages actually boosts their productivity, reduces turnover, improves discipline, etc., in which case ex-ante skills become less of a consideration in hiring decisions. In fact, even if that worker was less skilled, he could simply find employment elsewhere, as a booming economy encouraged by a MW increase would allow. The only case where that isn't possible is if he's structurally unemployed, but that point is non-unique: the MW can do nothing about structural unemployment, nor did it create it, though federal jobs-training programs alongside a MW increase would mollify that harm. Tolerating starvation wages amid assymetries in bargaining leverage cannot conceivably be a solution to stagnating wages and massive income disparities, which gives rise to all the harms I highlighted in my last round. We need to look at the impact of the MW in the aggregate, not in terms of some isolated anecdote. Defending My CaseI. ConsumptionIn my round, I provided three studies showing that the MW actually boosts consumption, and PRO didn't dispute my evidence or balance anything against it, so you have to buy that the MW would boost consumption. His only rsponse is that the MW would boost GDP if jobs aren't lost, but (1) I've already provided several reputable studies showing that moderate MW increases do not induce layoffs and (2) even if there were moderate layoffs, this need not mean that the MW doesn't boost consumption. Rather, because low-wage workers are more likely to spend the increase in their pay check and even laid-off workers, if such workers exist, would receive payments via automatic stabilizers from the government, consumption would still rise. II. Efficiency Wage Hypothesis This contention was dropped, so you can extend it. The impact of this was devastating for CON, because I demonstrated that businesses could recover virtually all of the costs of raising the MW through greater efficiency, such as reduced turnover, improved morale, improved discipline, higher productivity, etc. in fact, this along with very slight price increases is how businesses weather th slight increase in costs of the MW, so this goes handily with my evidence on it not harming employment. If this is dropped by next round, it's impactful enough to simply vote PRO on this. III. Income Inequality CON's response to this contention is completely disjointed. First, he drops that wages have been stagnating for most workers and falling for MW workers; that inequality begets inequality and that social mobility is low; that much of this can be attributed, via Autor et al., to the declining real value of the MW; that inequality as tangible harms, as delineatd by Joe Stiglitz; and, per Mishel (2013), the MW would actually reduce this inequality. Thus, you have to buy all of these impacts.CON then strawmans my evidence. I *never* postulated that men and women have the same skills, but rather that increasing minimum pay *in the aggregate*, not with respect to one particular industry. While CON's evidence on men being by their nature more skilled than women in X industry is anecdotal by itself, my evidence speaks to the *aggregate.* In other words, because all industries would need to offer a certain minimum pay - and many of these workers are in fact women - pay would rise. CON never challenges this. Also, cross-apply my earlier response in skills disparities.CON's argument that inequality exists with the MW ignores the *reason* for this, much of which is the *declining* value of the MW. In other words, the MW itself would ameliorate this inequality. Workers have the aiblity to work elsewhere currently, but even *with* this labor mobility - over three decades, no less - CON concedes to this gap. He never demonstrates how eliminating the MW would actually improve competition. In fact, as I demonstrated, eliminating it would *reduce* the willingness to work, and thus reduce the aggregate productivity of the workers employed. Many workers would rely on the government doll in lieu of earning their own living - cross apply the evidence from my povery contention. We had no minimum wage prior to the 1930s, and we saw, as expected, poverty-level wages far worse than we're seeing now. IV. JobsCON doesn't contest a single study I presented, nor does he present any of his own, so already you're preferring my evidence. The main problem with this remark, though, is that it presents a correlation as causation. He fails to tell you that the U.S. economy was reeling from the most severe recession since the Depression during this time, and that *that* was the cause of jobs disappearing, not the increase in the MW. His claim on 60% of the poor not working is unsourced, but also absurd because the MW would actually *induce* people to work more, and thus decrease welfare spending. Because that evidence from my R1 was dropped, extend it. Then CON provides us with nothing more than an anecdote with fake numbers, but ignoes *all* of the evidence in my second contention demonstrating how these labor costs are offset. Thus, discard it. His contention on the MW removing the initiative to work is also unsubstantited and nonsensical, by its nature. Increasing compensation would actually *shift out* labor supply and increase the incentive to work. For that, you need only look at my C2. V. PovertyCON's only response to this contention is a reductio ad absurdum, but this is nonsense: a $50 or $100 MW would be absurd, and I am not obligated to defend it. He can in no way tie this to the resolution except with his unsubstantiated non-sequitur that, somehow, because an absurd value of the MW would be harmful, even a $1 increase would have negative effects. He provides no evidence for this, but I provide evidence to the contrary. Thus, buy my evidence. Sourceshttp://www.debate.org...