Mar
16
Blog Post #8
March 16, 2015 | Leave a Comment
It’s shocking to see how far apart the minimum wage and the living wage are. It feels like such a large success that the minimum wage was finally wage, but it’s still nowhere near where it should be. Increasing minimum wage is great, but there’s always that fear in the back of my head of how more people could get fired if the minimum wage were hired. For example, some places with a select amount of trusted and experienced employees may decide to fire the less valuable employees if the minimum wage is increased, since they won’t be able to keep up with the new wage. This could be especially true for people who just getting into the job market and have to start small because they haven’t acquired any “real” skills yet. However, if no one is willing to hire because of the minimum wage, they’ll never be able to gain experience.
An argument against that could always be how people should work harder so that once they have a job, they’ll be promoted and won’t be working at the minimum wage and won’t have to worry about increases of minimum wage and their job status along with that. I think it’s interesting how teenagers from relatively well-off families are the ones who are making the minimum wage rather than single parents. Although thinking back on it, it’s not that surprising because the teenagers might just want to get some experience. Since they don’t have to worry about their personal finances, they can focus on their part-time job that will hopefully help them acquire skills that they can use in the future to attain a better job and be better off.
One of the articles supported the idea that raising minimum wage essentially won’t help the poverty rate because businesses would just hire less and there would be less entry level jobs. The article then states, “Congress should look for less ineffective ways to help the poor.” I agree, but if the article is going to be so critical of raising the minimum wage, shouldn’t they put out some of their own solutions out there? Raising the minimum wage is already a huge step forward but yet this article is criticizing the small progress we’ve achieved.
One of the articles stated, “Some evidence suggests that employment doesn’t fall much because the higher minimum wage lowers labor turnover, which raises productivity and labor demand,” which makes me wonder if that’s really true. If employees are working just above minimum wage, such as $9/hr since the minimum wage is currently $8.75/hr, those workers working slightly above minimum wage might feel discouraged to keep working. They probably won’t get a raise because they’re still making above minimum wage and their employer isn’t obligated to pay them more, so that might make them feel inferior and as if they aren’t using their entire potential. That way, they might begin to search for different jobs that have better pay and opportunities.
Also in the article that mentioned the workers demanding $15/hour, I feel like that remains quite surprising. The minimum wage has increased only slightly in the past few years, it would be shocking if it rose so suddenly to $15/hour. Unfortunately, if the graphs are any indication, a minimum wage of $15/hour wouldn’t help an adult with two kids get near the living wage.
-Margaret Wang
