Raise Minimum Wage

Thanks, Pro.R1) Life NecessitiesOn the surface, this argument may seem like a good one. However, there are many problems that are tied to it and really no evidence that raising the minimum wage will actually help this cause, only theoretical assumptions. The reason some workers receive the minimum wage as pay is because their contribution to the labor market is the smallest possible to be recognized as something worth paying for. The money paid to a McDonald's worker represents precisely the value that they are adding to the economy. Suddenly doubling their wages for doing the exact same amount of work before and after creates an imbalance in society. These workers are being paid a lot more than they're working for, and so the money being given to the workers rises above the amount of effort they are putting into the system. Consider the following scenario: a man gets a job screwing caps onto tubes of toothpaste. The man is paid bare minimum for doing his job, but it's not enough to support his family. Instead of seeking the education to get a better job, the man goes and strike and starts advocating for a minimum wage increase so that he can receive more money for doing the exact same amount of minimal work. The point of this example is to show that workers who need to earn more money shouldn't rely on the government to raise the minimum wage, but to receive a higher income they should instead work for their money and contribute to the economy instead of protesting to receive more for doing less.Pro claims that raising the minimum wage will reduce poverty, but doesn't show any historical evidence of this happening. As the challenger of the status quo, Pro must demonstrate that raising the minimum wage will benefit society, not just in theory, or else there is no reason to change the status quo. Economists have studied whether or not a minimum wage increase would reduce poverty and have concluded that it would have no effect on the poverty rate[1]. This makes sense, because few minimum wage earners are actually poor. In fact, the average minimum wage earner has a family income of $50,000 per year, with less than one-fifth at or below the poverty line[1].To add, the cost of living varies from state to state, so if the federal minimum wage were to be increased, it would create an unfair situation for many states as they would be forced to comply to the increase regardless of whether their cost of living is cheap or expensive.R2) IncentiveThis is Pro's logic: if a worker is given more of a livable wage, then that worker would be more inclined to climb the income ladder even if they are financially satisfied. This is clearly false, because dissatisfaction drives workers to earn more. By raising the wage, a worker would think "since I'm earning enough now then I don't see a point in working to earn more". This is a burden for not only businesses but the economy as well because less good jobs are being taken, and less money is being pumped into the system. This issue is also important because the majority of minimum wage earners are between the ages 16 and 24[2], so they are at a critical point of choosing their jobs and decided whether they want to receive more education or not.R3) EmploymentMy opponent's proposal to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $16.97 would be detrimental for many companies because it would force them to pay their employees over double the amount they were originally being paid. Clearly this would cause businesses to cut job openings and lay off more workers, resulting in higher unemployment. We must remember that a small minority of hourly paid workers earn minimum wage: 4.7% to be exact[3], so there a lot of businesses that would remain unaffected by whether the wage was increased or not. That makes the opinions of many businesses irrelevant to this issue.Pro concedes that unemployment would increase due to a higher wage. Since it would mainly affect the 4.7% of minimum wage workers, the unemployment rates would not seem big in comparison to the rest of workers. However, the unemployment rates would have a much more drastic effect if we focused on those workers, the workers that matter, alone. Job rates would significantly decrease for them. As I showed in Round 1, there is higher unemployment in states with higher minimum wages.Additional NotesPro makes a few other assertions that are not backed up by evidence, such as "increasing the wage provides benefits" and "not increasing it creates a burden on the taxpayer". How exactly? These assumptions can be logically dismissed since they were randomly inserted into the argument without actual evidence.My final point: If the minimum wage were to be increased from $7.25 to $16.97, that would negatively affect workers who were earning above the original wage, like those earning $12 an hour. Does this mean that they will now be paid the exact same as original $7.25 workers who are doing less work than the higher $12 earners? This will create an unfair situation for workers earning between the original federal wage and Pro's proposed increase.Sources[1] http://www.heritage.org... [2] http://www.heritage.org...[3] http://www.bls.gov...