As inflation rises, so does the national debt and the cost of living. The three major factors/groups that the minimum wage amount effects are the people that rely on the minimum wage to live, the businesses that pay minimum wage, and the effect of the minimum wage on the businesses of all kinds that people use to purchase things.
Today, the minimum wage has heavily debated and the main problem is there is no clear solution. As inflation rises, so does the national debt and the cost of living. The three major factors/groups that the minimum wage amount effects are the people that rely on the minimum wage to live, the businesses that pay minimum wage, and the effect of the minimum wage on the businesses of all kinds that people use to purchase things.
This article documents an interview/talk between Ari Shapiro from National Public Radio and University of Washington professor Jacob Vigdor about the recent law raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars in areas such as Seattle, California, and New York. Seattle took a strategic route to the minimum wage increase by implementing the law so that the minimum wage would be incremented over time towards 15 dollars instead of an immediate “hike” up to 15 dollars an hour. Vigdor states that the law incrementing the minimum wage over time has been effective as it has given time for smaller businesses to adjust to the cost of paying these increased wages. Vigdor explains that through being the director of the Seattle minimum wage study, he has learned that many businesses have not been hurt so badly by the raise of the minimum wage in Seattle. However, he assures that raising the minimum wage in areas that have a higher poverty and/or not have as much wealth to spread as Seattle might not work as well.
Fox News highlights Wendy’s recent announcement that they will be introducing ordering kiosks to 6,000 restaurants in 2016. Stuart Varney, of Fox News, states that raising the minimum wage is destroying entry level jobs and appealing to those that want a living wage for everybody who has a job. Fox News does a good job at highlighting the bad effects of raising the minimum wage by providing a recent example of how the minimum wage could hurt fast food restaurants and evidently take people out of their jobs due to automation.
By raising the minimum wage to $9.50 in Minnesota, Mark Dayton has also raised the median income significantly in the state. This raise has caused Minnesota to have a median income that is 8,000 dollars more than the United States average today. In contrast to the Red State’s article, which harshly bashes the effects of raising the minimum wage in specific states, Gibson’s article within the Huffington Post shows how raising the minimum wage can have positive effects on the economy in some situations/states. The article also successfully articulates against a counterargument made by Republican state representative Mark Uglem, who believed that Dayton’s plans to raise the minimum wage and taxes would cause all the business to leave Minnesota. The effects of the minimum wage increase by Dayton include an addition of 172,000 jobs and a much higher economic confidence than when previously governed by a republican beforehand in Minnesota.
While citing the American Action Forum, the article states that in the year of 2016, states that have raised the minimum wage have had a significantly less employment increase in restaurants within major cities than surrounding states that have not increased their minimum wage in 2016. This evidence goes against liberally biased beliefs that the minimum wage should be increased significantly. Additionally, the article cites the Employment Policies Institute’s (EPI) recent statement on minimum wage recently. EPI states that the increase of the minimum wage of 36% to 12.25% is hurting major cities in California such as San Francisco and Oakland, causing many smaller and/or local businesses to close in response to their inclined overhead costs of paying workers. The argument made by the Red State article is strong in terms of their conservative bias and their reasoning on why they and many other conservatives believe that raising the minimum wage hurts the economy and livelihood of smaller businesses relying on the minimum wage to pay their workers and stay afloat.
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