What are the advantages and disadvantages of an increased minimum wage?
477321
its a short term fix. it doesnt address the real problem of inflation. after min wage goes up all other prices go up from rent to cheeseburgers. costs of producing goes up causes costs of living goes up. for those who make just above min wage there is no pay raise just cost raise. the only ones this never effects are the wealthy. very bad idea. its exactly the same as when unions go on strike. the companies that employ them have to charge more to cover whatever the unions were demanding. this has a ripple effect driving prices of everything up eventually forcing the unions to strike again next year usually for the same things they were demanding last time. heres our show on money, listen to what dr griffin has to say http://www.philipdru.com/griffin_stream.html
1140814
I hope not, for two reasons\n\n1) The U.S. Constitution doesn't give the federal government the authorization or the power to do it.  Each individual state should determine what it wants to force private companies to pay unskilled inexperienced teenagers.\n\n2) Raising the minimum wage leads to reduced benefits, a higher unemployment rate, and higher prices.\n\n~~~~~\n\nWhat should the minimum wage be?  If $10 an hour is good, what's wrong with $150 an hour?  Or $1,000 an hour?  This is a question minimum wage supporters refuse to answer.
698925
This is a difficult question... \nFirst min. Wage was enacted to be a living wage which it was at first. If it had kept up with inflation it would be well over $12 an hour( I did an upper level paper on this and I have a degree in Labor studies) The problem is while the cost of labor has really only risen a small percentage the cost of the same goods that could be obtained with that salary is now out of reach. so min wage needs to be raised.    Min. Wage is supposed to be a living wage and can be raised by individual states the Federal government just sets a rock bottom minimum.\n$5-6 dollar an hour jobs cannot support an economy.... It is kind of a snow ball effect.. .\nThe problem is people skilled or unskilled are fighting over any jobs that pay a living wage... There should be  a salary gap for skilled workers but our economy is leaning the other direction.
452667
There's really no such thing (unless you are talking about the federal minimum wage, which is, I believe, $5.15/hour).  The market determines the wages, which can fluctuate widely depending upon specialization, employer, and area of the country.
1158321
It gets worse... congressional members have increased their wages by over 30k since the last minimum wage increase.\n\nIt was legislation set to be doomed from the get-go when they made it so high. They should have just went for like $6.15.\n\nPretty depressing if you ask me.
797945
The price of goods are increasing steadily without a minimum wage increase.  If it cost $4 for a gallon of milk and the minimum wage is $5.15 then, yes, I think the minimum wage increase would help those people making minimum wage.  Oh, and it's not just teenagers making minimum wage. \n\nHere's an except from an article on the people making minimum wage. \n\n"One reason even some Republicans are mulling the wage hike is that the number of single mothers making minimum wage has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. Of Americans making less than $7.25 an hour, half are over 24 years old, and about half are primary household earners. Sixty-two percent are white, 16 percent are black, and 17 percent are Hispanic. Nearly twice as many are women than men.
522894
Try asking what is the impact of an increase in the minimum wage on the availability of entry level positions and total wages paid to those who fill those positions?  You might also ask what the anticipated reaction of job-providers would be?  \n\nI don't know if you'll get the correct answer here, but I suspect that many would be surprised to know the real (measured) impact. \n\nHint:  Imagine your reaction if you owned a business employing 50 minimum wage employees and the mandated wage goes up by 20%.  Would you:\n\na.  Knuckle under, pay the higher wage, maintain your prices and make less profit?\n\nb.  Pay the higher wage, raise prices to compensate and hope that your competition doesn't transfer jobs to China?\n\nc.  Hire undocumented workers for less than the minimum wage and hope you don't get caught? \n\nd.  Lay off 20% of your workforce and try to squeeze more output out of the remaining 40 employees?\n\ne.  Follow the competition and transfer your jobs to China? \n\nWhich of these possible "solutions" is best for the U.S. economy and labor market?
1036156
I saw in the News yesterday a refusal to a proposal to raise the minimum wage, which is currently 5.15 (Dollars) an hour. It is the National min. wage. Sorry to tell you this.
801133
The biggest down fall is it can raise unemployment.  Say you own a business and have 5 workers and pay them $5.00 an hour.  Now say the government comes in and you now have to pay them $7.00 an hour.  Before you were paying your workers a total of $25 an hour.  Now with the raise you have to pay them $35 an hour.  Some  business can not handle the increase as they are on tight budgets.  So in return they let go a person to keep their cost low, so they can compete with the foreign goods.\nSo now if you are a tax payer, more of your money is going to help unemployed and this can take away from other programs the government has set up such as building our infrastructure.
1106755
The minimum wage is the same as everyone else, its the maximum hours that is different. I think its like 20 hours a week.
330773
a disadvantage is that if the union decides to strike you're stuck without work.  also the union dues.  I don't know what the advantages are but where I work the warehouse workers are unionized and they are a pain in management's butt.
283333
Minimum wage is not necessarily a bad thing. Imagine if you will, what would happen if there were no minimum wage. There are a number of companies today that pay there entry level employees minimum wage. (Usual manual labor or low skill level jobs) If there were no minimum wage, these companies would pay their employees less. If minimum wage is currently $5.15/hr I believe. So am employee making minimum wage works 50 hors per week, that's 40 regular hours at $5.15 ($206.00) and 10 over time at $7.725 ($77.25) per hour, then they would earn $283.25 pre week. That's about $1,133.00 per month. Depending on where you live, that's the coast of an apartment... In some places, it not enough for an apartment. Since I live in Central Delaware, let me us this local as an example. \nIncome: $1,133 /mo\nTaxes:  $113.00 / mo (10% based on regular hours)\nStarting Cash: $1,000.00\nCheep, run down one bedroom apartment:  $500.00 /mo\nCar insurance of an old car:                       $ 65.00 /mo\nElectric, assuming low usage:                     $ 65.00 /mo\nHome Phone, assuming no extras               $ 35.00 /mo\nFuel for Car, assuming used for work only   $ 60.00 /mo\nGroceries fro one Assuming frugality           $250.00 /mo\nTOTAL:                                                    $975.00 /mo\nRemainder: (For emergencies, savings, \nRecreation, etc...)                                     $ 25.00 /mo\n\nGranted, that at the end of the year, this person would receive a tax refund of about $5,891.60, but that doesn’t help this person on a daily bases the rest of the year. \n\nNow, consider that these same companies provide an average of a 6% raise per year. (The nation average last Time I checked was just over 3% but I'm trying to make a point) After the employees first year with the company, they would be earning 1,200.98 per month. After 5 years, they would be earning 1516.21 per month. Assuming that the cost of living went up only 2% each year, below the national average I might add, after five years, the employee in question would now have an amazing $436.42 per month unaccounted for. This means that this person could now get basic cable, purchase better groceries. (I'm q single guy and I shop fairly conservatively and I still spend nearly 350 per month on groceries and things for the apartment.) If you include this basic changes to his life style, this employee, after 5 years of working hard would have less then 286.42 per month for things other then daily living. This does not include many of the normal things most Americans enjoy such as a cell phone, internet access, etc. \n\nOkay, that's WITH a minimum wage. Imagine if there was no minimum wage an companies started hiring people at 3.00 per hour. Assuming 50 hours again, that's only $165.00 per week or about 660 per month. That doesn’t cover food and shelter. If these people were to work 2 minimum wage jobs, 40 hours each, they would still only have 960.00 per month.  That still doesn’t cover the basic listed above in this area, and if you think that companies would not take advantage of people this way, you have a lot to learn about American businesses. \n\nMany American companies are not above keeping employees as close to minimums they can. In fact, there are many companies now that reward proficiency and hard work with termination. With the "At Will"\n laws in many states today, if an employee mentions the word, union, they are terminated on the spot, and it's legal. Add to that the fact that these same companies periodically fire members of there senior staff because these people 'make too much money' because they have been around too long and know too much and you have some major unfair business practices. But that is a different issue. My point is that these companies would exploit people to no end if it weren't for the minimum wage law.
875872
coming from someone who is in a labor union i would say that if minimum wage goes up than our wages would go up as well because they use minimum wage as kind of a baseline to gauge all other wages. but im not really sure just a guess.
330801
Do people buying things help the economy?\nDo companies do well when their products/services are purchased?\nDo people spend money?\nRaise the salaries and people will spend. They can't spend what they don't have. If the minimum wage was raised enough the economy would boom.
826124
Case in point MN raised minimum wage to 6.15 an hour (with soc, and medicare and other taxes that is 7.08 an hour.  I had 104 employees of which 68 were minimum wage wait staff.  Their take home pay was about $150 a night in tips plus the $30 in wages for a total of $46,800 a year on average.  The 20% increase in the minimum wage cost all 104 employees their jobs.\n\n(note: this was a upscale restaurant and bar.  Two weeks before they passed the mim wage the Democratic also passed a smoking ban for the city, my daily bar business drove or walked five blocks away across city lines to be able to drink and smoke.\nIn addition my clientele was not minimum wage earners so the wage increase did not effect them.)
1065356
Price Stability (Low Inflation)\n\nIf wages go up then you cannot hire too many workers.\n\nExample:\nIf today Congress passed a new Bill to lower the Minimum Wage to $3.15 then most companies could hire almost twice the number of workers they now have and that would reduce unemployent.\nThat law is never going to be proposed by any Congressman because it would not be popular and that would cost him the election. Despite the fact, low unemployment is good for everyone it also causes less Crime and more Profits.\n\nOn the other hand, if the minimum wage is changed to $10.30 per hour then most companies would have to fire half the employees to make the same profits and that would increase unemployment and crime.\nIf a Congressman proposes that law it will be very popular and it will probably will give him an election. \nYes, the more damage you make the more popular you are.\n\nHigh wages cause inflation.\n\nIn the United States of America the wages are the highest in the world and that is eventually is going to cost millions of jobs.\n\nSince 1994 companies have been moving out of the United States of America to Mexico, China and India.\n\nThat trend cannot be reversed unless you bring the mexicans to the United States of America (As opposed to send the factories to Mexico)\n\nIn a company moves to Mexico not only employment is reduced but also taxes and if you are unemployed you cannot spend too much money.\n\nIn fact, Mexico is now the 12th richest country in the World because of this.
117324
Unemployment, as explained by my prof, is largely related to the minimum wage.  The higher the minimum wage, the fewer people the companies can afford, the less people hired, the higher the unemployment rate.  The lower the minimum wage, the more people the companies can hire, the lower the unemployment rate.  However, people don't like making $1 an hour because of inflation and rises in the cost of living, and the people will quit working, raising the unemployment rate again.  It's all about the supply and demand for labor and wheather the government has placed a binding floor on the minimum wage. (a binding floor will cause the problem with illegal immigrants: the demand for unskilled labor is lower than the minimum wage, and the companies have taken steps to get around it, using the illegal aliens to avoid the minimum wage.)  The answer to any economics question tends to boil down to supply, demand, and changes in them caused by new factors.