Minimum Wage Laws Harm the Poor

I will keep this short and let numbers do the talking. Economics is all about numbers....1. On the one hand, raising the minimum wage will increase the income of poor families.2. On the other hand, some workers with low wages may lose a job when the minimum wage is raged.The crucial question is, which of the two effects is bigger? For that we have to do the math....Since my opponent cited [1], we both agree that this is a reliable source.First of all, on page 2 of that report, it states that there will be 900,000 people less under the poverty treshold, if the minimum wage is raised to $10,10 (even though unemployment may rise). This confirms my position.But a simple calculation also shows that poor families will be better of after raising the minimum wage.Suppose that 500,000 people lose their job. These will be people with low incomes, but of course not necessarily people who earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr. Some of the people who lose jobs may earn $8, $9 or $10 an hour or even higher.In 2010, 15.1 percent of all people in the USA lived in poverty. [2]Increasing the minimum wage will not only affect the people who earn minimum wage, but also affect the people who earn slightly more. If a $7.25 employee from a fast-food chain gets his wage increased to $10.10, then his/her manager, who earns $9/hr probably also will see an increase to at least $11/hr.Let's assume that the people with the 10% lowest wages will have their wages increased by $2/hr on average.10% of 155 million people is 15.5 million. So in total, they earn $31 million/hr more. On the other hand, 500,000 of them will lose their job. They will earn $10/hr less (pessimistic estimate: they will earn on average $8/hr, and their salary will not go down to $0 but to something above that because they qualify for government assistance).So that is a total loss of 5 million dollars/hr. So the net gain is 31-5=26 million dollars/hr.Of course this is just a rough calculation, but the more precise calculations were don by the CBO, and they came to the conclusionthat 900,000 people will be lifted out of poverty!rebuttalsPRO: My opponent argues that policies that cause unemployment among the poor are not so bad, because those people can receive welfare. This argument confuses the issue. Welfare programs help the poor, this does not change the fact that minimum wage laws, in and of themselves, hurt the poor.I think the question is, what would change if we change the minimum wage laws with all other laws unchanged. The positive effect of an increase of wages for the poor is clear. On the other hand, the negative financial impact of higher unemployment is dampened by the existing welfare programs. The overall financial impact of minimum wage laws for poor families is positive.PRO: The opinions of some right wing economists are unrelated to the empirical issue of the effect of minimum wage laws on unemployment.True, but I only pointed out that some right wing economist support minimum wage increases, because my opponent suggested that only liberal economists believe that the impact of the minimum wage increase on the unemployment is small.conclusionThe numbers just don't add up for my opponent.[1] http://cbo.gov...[2] http://www.npc.umich.edu...[3] http://www.dlt.ri.gov...