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Blog Post #7- Class 14
March 16, 2015 | Leave a Comment
The Huffington post was very interesting. I like how Short utilizes graphs in order to display the severity of the living wage policy issue. The $32.30 of the living wage is towering over the $8.00 NY minimum wage. DeBlasio’s plan with no benefits is $13.13 but is in no way close to the $32.30 amount. In my opinion, DeBlasio’s efforts are a push for the right direction but efforts are simply not enough.
In the Washington Post article, I found it surprising that fast food workers demanded a minimum wage increase to $15/ hr. Yes, these workers do need jobs and may need to support other family members. However, I believe a person’s wage should coincide with their workload. I do know that fast food industry is stressful, but for the amount of technical work that they have to do, $15 seems like an extremely high wage. I do believe they should earn at least $10/ hr, and $15 is just too high!
The New York Times article did bring up a point that I would like to highlight. Is increasing the minimum wage healthy for the economy and reduce poverty? This article does what the other three failed to do. Romer does manage to address both sides of the argument and support each as well. The arguments that stick with me are those of lower income backgrounds are more likely to spend more, thus promoting consumer spending. On the flip side, higher minimum wage might cause businesses to increase prices to cover costs. And, “the customers paying those prices — including some of the diners at McDonald’s and the shoppers at Walmart — have very low family incomes. Thus this price effect may harm the very people whom a minimum wage is supposed to help.”
Sherk’s Heritage Foundation article also pointed out something very interesting as well. Chart 1 pointed out that minimum wage workers ages 25 and under are not the household’s main breadwinner. This is true but one cannot rely on the “big picture” in order to solve problems. If young adults had steady household incomes, they would not be working in minimum wage jobs in the first place. In my opinion, students only work in fast food industries so that they can earn money, no matter how little it is, because every little penny counts.
I like how the minimum wage is steadily increasing year after year. $8.00 after 2013, $8.75 after 2014 and $9.00 after 2015. it is remarkable that the minimum wage used to be $5 or so. However, with minimum wage increases, there are pros and cons. Yes, it can spur economy growth but also force prices to go up because costs are going up as well. We must be prepared for steady increases in virtually, everything if this were to occur.
