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Blog #8- Minimum Wage
March 17, 2015 | Leave a Comment
The minimum wage is the hottest topic to debate when discussing inequality. It’s the age old fight between those who want to raise it against those who don’t. Those who believe it will make lives better versus those who believe that it’ll only make it worse. I do believe in raising the minimum wage from its current state because it is egregiously low. However, I don’t believe in raising the minimum wage too drastically. I believe raising it a little bit and accompanying it with tax breaks and earned subsidies will help make it more fair for everyone as opposed to a giant rise in wages.
In the Huffington Post article, they discuss Mayor De Blasio’s plan for about 18,000 workers to raise their wages to $11.50 an hour with benefits. I think this is a substantial raise in wages that should be applied nationally. I believe $13.13 without benefits shouldn’t even be an option if the worker is working more than 30 hours a week. They are entitled to the benefits if a majority of their time is spent working. The article points out, however, that this still isn’t enough for many single parents. While this is obviously not ideal, it’s also wishful thinking that minimum wage will ever increase to their proposed living wage of $25 when it is currently barely $8.
In the next article in the Washington Post, the author states that a $15 minimum wage does not sound as crazy as it did two years ago. While cities and people are certainly warming up to the idea of raising the minimum wage like he pointed out, I highly doubt that $15 is a viable option. This is about $8 more than our current national minimum wage and it’s extremely hard and a long process to even raise it a few more cents let alone a whopping eight dollars. In addition, this big leap may cause harm businesses and indirectly harm consumers in the long run.
The New York Times article points out that raising the minimum wage has no major adverse effects on employment. Most workers are keeping their jobs and businesses aren’t laying them off. However, big wage increases translates higher prices for goods and services. The author points out that the consumers for these goods are the lower wage workers. This hike in wages that directly benefit low wage workers end up indirectly harming them even more. However, at the end of this article, the author proposes solutions other than minimum wage hikes. Since the article in the Huffington Post pointed out that the wage hike isn’t substantial enough to help single families and it’s hard to imagine a $25 minimum wage, other things like earned-income tax credit could help instead. I like this idea of rewarding those who work. Many times, the poor in USA are stuck between a rock and a hard place with employment. If they work, they get extra money but if they work too much, they may end up losing their government benefits. So the result? Inefficiency and less productivity. Earned-income tax credit helps offset the burden of losing government benefits and utilizes every worker to their best ability.
The last article in the Heritage Foundation was a surprising one. When you hear a debate about minimum wage workers, you always tend to think of hardworking older members struggling to make ends meet. You never think of white suburban teenagers. However, reading this article and relating this to personal experience, it does make sense that more than half are younger people who want a little bit of cash on the side. When I worked retail, most of the people working as well were predominantly younger than 25. They all went to school and this retail job took up 20 hours a week max and was definitely not their life. If this reflects the nation, then I do believe that many minimum wage workers are not those older members in dire need of a raise. However, they do exist. Just the fact that there are older people trying to make ends meet with the exact same wage as younger, carefree teenagers poses a problem. In the end, I do believe in raising the minimum wage to an appropriate amount designated by researchers and adding some other benefits like earned-income tax credit to have an effective and fair system of wages.
Stella Kong
