Minimum wage must be abolished.

1. Minimum Wage Does Not Help Low-Income Workers
(1) Hyperinflation- Minimum wages drive prices higher by forcing the employers produce at less profit, therefore giving them a greater incentive to raise their prices to compensate. This reduces the real value of money and lowers the value of minimum wage greatly while causing inflation as a result.
(2)Job Reduction- Employers, who cannot afford to have to pay for those minimum wages are forced to cut down on jobs in that sector, to try to reduce their losses. Or in other cases, they switch their industry to other sectors or just move the whole production unit to another country! (Like China, for example.)
(3)Rejects people from working- Because of minimum wage, people MUST earn that much money from an hour. Now if a person in poverty tries to work less than that wage, to sell their labour cheaply, that is illegal. In other words, it bars the poor from one of their only advantages, hurting them more than helping them.
(4)Employment From Other Groups- Minimum wage also attracts other people from the work market, like teenagers from families who wish to earn extra money. Because of this, the smaller work market is flooded by competitors against the truly needy for the jobs, and they often get them. Because of this, people tend to even lose their jobs instead of receiving better pay from them.
(5)Increase of the Problem- Because people are attracted to the work market than post-secondary education, there will be more and more unskilled workers that will cause a huge influx to the supply of low-income workers, in the end only deepening the problem.

2. Minimum Wage Hurts The Economy
(1)Hurts small businesses; massively takes down competition: Because of minimum wage, labour costs are massively increased, reducing profits for many businesses. While big companies like Wal-Mart for example, can survive and adapt to those conditions without taking too much damage, the pressure might be just too great for the smaller businesses who doesn?t have as much flexibility. Also the smaller businesses because of the added pressure, they cannot compete and are forced to quit or barely struggle to survive, therefore stifling the economy and inducing monopolies.
(2)Hurts the nation?s competitiveness- the country is unable to provide cheap labour, which is a must for many industries, especially for manufacturing and small jobs. Because of that, the bigger companies that can move out of the company to another country. This not only hurts the workers but the country itself.

Who's with me on this one?

I'm going to say this bluntly, than explain.

Abolishing minimum wage is retarded, and anyone who supports it is a moron.

Why?

If you abolish minimum wage people can pay you whatever they damn well please and you have to deal with it, they can give pay cuts for no reason, NEVER have to give you a raise and YOU have to deal with it.

So, take your head out your *** and think.

I'm speechless on this one. Wow, you really have to rethink this Gloria. Some people are working for less then 50 cents an hour around the world. If they removed the minimum wage things would go crazy! Just wow at even considering that, I'm nearly speechless on this one and don't know where to start...

I think you're deliberately trying to goad people into an arguement against you - the minimum wage is a good thing that stops us from having economical climates seen in third world countries, i.e. rich business owners with a very poor majority population.

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Originally Posted by Shinigami

I'm going to say this bluntly, than explain.

Abolishing minimum wage is retarded, and anyone who supports it is a moron.

Why?

If you abolish minimum wage people can pay you whatever they damn well please and you have to deal with it, they can give pay cuts for no reason, NEVER have to give you a raise and YOU have to deal with it.

So, take your head out your ass and think.

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Even though I agree, tone it down just a bit next time.

Thanks,

-C

I am going to agree with Gloria on this one.

OK maybe I’m the only on whoa has actually studied history, but are people really so oblivious to the 20’s, a mere 90 years ago. Has no one read the Jungle, or The Great Gatsby. Does no one realize that in the 1920’s we were in a time of “unprecedented economic growth” and people were starving to death in the streets of New York on mass. Do people not realize that the only reason child labor was able to be abolished was that Mom and Dad could actually earn enough to put food on the table. It is very easy to talk about abolishing the minimum wage, but has anyone thought this through? I’ve heard all the arguments, the markets will take care of themselves; wages will adjust to a reasonable level. But keep this in mind; before the new deal, there was no place on earth with a freer market than the United States, and the minimum wage was not instituted because things were warm and cuddly. One final thought, if the minimum wage should be abolished, if employee protections should be rolled back, I hope to god that you have an advanced degree, and preferable family money, because if you don’t you and everyone else who does not will be right back begging in the gutter, just like at every other time in history before the Minimum Wage was instituted.

I don't know about america but i'm on minimum wage in England and its fairly reasonable.

?4.77 an hour +tips.
I honestly can't complain.

I think abolishing would be pointless, would lead to an automatic outcry of outrage from people, because I can no doubt see that if it was abolished their not going to get higher wages, it'll go lower.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shinigami

I'm going to say this bluntly, than explain.

Abolishing minimum wage is retarded, and anyone who supports it is a moron.

Why?

If you abolish minimum wage people can pay you whatever they damn well please and you have to deal with it, they can give pay cuts for no reason, NEVER have to give you a raise and YOU have to deal with it.

So, take your head out your *** and think.

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do me a favor numbnuts look up the meaning of retarded and i belive you will find it means somthing COMPLETEY diffrent than you think . im in agreement with your position but i find your misuse of the word retarded offensive

Ok, minimum wage is there to protect people. Anyone without a degree get jobs like Tim Hortons, Starbucks, and MacDonalds. Places like these make enough money that they could easily pay their employees three times as much as minimum wage.

So why do they keep it at minimum wage? Because they CAN'T go lower, because it's ILLEGAL to pay someone less than the time and effort that they put into it.

I'd laugh at any company that would take advantage of loss of minimum wage, because then they would lose employees, meaning most of those fast food restaurants you enjoy, malls like walmart, even coffee shops, would be hard pressed to stay in business.

What about imposing a wage cap? Nobody needs to earn more than *insert the figure you think here* per year. And breeding a culture of wealth and greed isn't going to lead anywhere "good"...

a wage cap is just as bad an idea because then you are giving people less incentive to move up

Is financial reward the only incentive?

no but it is a big incentive

minimum wage has only been in the uk for about 10 years now and i can honestly say it really hasnt had any benefit to people, many are now alot worse off.

Yes the principle was to stop people being paid a paltry wage, but at the same time if people are stupid enough to work for the figures then thats no-one elses fault but there own, if working is going to bring home less money and stability than benefits why do it?

on the other side many many people have found them earning less each year because of the minimum wage, the government says the employer only has to pay this amount so employers do. Many companies such as McDonalds used to employ younger people through busy peak periods such as school breaks and pay them far less(usually 25%-50%) than their full-time older counter parts and everyone was happy, kids got extra pocket money, the workers had more money. Now they have to pay equal amouts to everyone, nd again only what the government says they have to, they cant "afford" to pay more (obviously we know they can but on paper in the boardrooms they cant).

so should it be abolished? NO not now, it should never of been introduced in the 1st place.

Ya know, your right, if the poor aren’t smart enough to lift them selves up by there own boot straps than they deserve to be poor, in fact we should take that Socially Darwinian ideal to the next level, if the parents are not smart enough to get better jobs, why think the kids could, so why bother educating them we could just put them to work, cheep, and we should probably make sure they do not mingle with the good parts of society, so lets build a wall, in fact, they drag society down, we need a solution to deal with them, someone explained this well, if only I could remember who.

PS, for those of you who did not catch the thinly veiled references, I am being facetious.

Yeah, greatswift obviously didn't think this through.

Do you honestly think people WANT to take minimum wage jobs? Lots of times, you can have an easy government job that pays higher etc. The only reason people take a minimum wage job is because they have no choice, or they're high school kids looking for pocket change.

And Gloria, do you support illegal immigration? Because that's what the current minimum wage supports. If you abolish it completely, there will be no reason for companies to even seek to use American manual labor, as Mexican migrant workers will work for much cheaper under worse conditions. Then you'll have crime shoot up etc.

Now let me counter each one of your points as best I can.

I.
1. No. Minimum wage jobs are not prevalent enough to cause hyperinflation. Also, this isn't born out by history, so this point has been falsified.
2. No. Most outsourced jobs are not minimum wage jobs. Most minimum wage jobs are bottom of the barrel jobs that cater to specific parts of a society, and can't be outsourced. Like janitorial duties etc. Manufacturing jobs require too much technical skill and training to be minimum wage.
3. No. Are you being serious here? The only people willing to work for less than minimum wage are illegal immigrants.
4. Eh. Some companies hire teenagers in order to prevent paying adult workers more compensation etc. But those jobs are only in relatively easy service jobs. Janitorial jobs and some other jobs are still done by adult workers on minimum wage. Also, teenagers working stimulates the economy, since most of their wages go towards purchases. If anything, teenagers working lowers the wages for adult workers. Abolishing the minimum wage would just make wages go even down even further. So I don't really see your point here.
5. No. Are you kidding me? Willing to work minimum wage instead of going to college? You can't even afford gas and health insurance on minimum wage. And also this argues against what you said before. Either minimum wage reduces manual jobs or it increases them. Pick one. Minimum wage offers incentives for companies to increase productivity, thereby actually increasing worth of American workers over time. If a company can either hire 20 workers with no skill or hire 1 worker with mechanical training, it has no reason to raise its worker productivity unless there's a minimum wage law, which affects the whole country, allowing it to still compete with its local competitors by hiring the one worker with mechanical training.

II.
1. This is just you pulling something out of nowhere. This isn't even a real economic argument. I can go on a whole spiel here about increased productivity and increased consumption etc, but I have a feeling it'll go over your head. Instead, I recommend you read some serious economic textbooks, not political articles written by far right pundits. Even most conservative economists recognize the value of having a minimum wage, as it prevents companies from turning a blind eye and hiring illegal immigrants for pennies.
2. Do you want cheap labor fueled America? America isn't China. Also, again, manufacturing jobs pay way over minimum wage. Minimum wage increases productivity to allow the US to compete with overseas.The rest of this was just so much speculation unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.

Get my drift? Study some real economics, instead of whatever garbage you've been listening to.

Ex, sites like this http://www.balancedpolitics.org/minimum_wage.htm do not count as balanced or real economics. Their arguments contradict each other etc. I have no qualms with an economist arguing against the minimum wage, IF HE CAN BRING ECONOMIC PROOF. However, most of those are just hacks, and so never have nay proof. A pundit writing an opinion piece is not an economic treatise, and shouldn't be used as support of a person's position.

Adam Smith would be a communist if he lived in todays corporatized globalized McWorld! you cant have a laissez-faire attitude when corperations have THIS MUCH PROFIT:
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/18/...2000_Prof.html
Many of these corporations are richer then most countries... Unless you do what the father of the free market preached and BAN CORPORATIONS we will need big government and policies such as minimum wage, to protect ourselves from... sadly... ourselves...

I am from England, the min wage has just gone up and my employer cant afford the rise due to the credit crunch! No-one where I work is getting a wage rise... Bottom to top! Those already on min wage are getting a non-consolidated payment to make up the difference but other than that there is nothing!!! Min wage is hard! I know I've been here for 6 months now and previously been here for 2 years (having taken a pay cut recently for the job of my dreams) but without the law of min wage we, THE WORKERS, would be the ones to be downtrodden! I have seen both the dole (less than min wage) and the min wage and I know what I prefer!!!
Down with the concept! If the government and high flying employers see it they may discuss it themselves!!! :mad:

First of all, thanks for replying. And I'll try to answer your posts, even though some are just flat out attacks against me.

Well, I'd respect kamikaze the most because even though he may be not good at the game, he actually bothered to attack each point.


I'll try to counter your points later, and at most, tommorow.

Stupid *****

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Originally Posted by Jato310

Stupid *****

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EXACTLY what I was referencing about. When you call me names or insult me, please explain why you do so. If my actions have angered you in such a way that you are resorted to using verbal abuse, it would better to have a rant at me why then just calling me a 'stupid *****'. Also, that action will earn you a notification, maybe a warning, and at most (but highly unlikely) a temporary ban. Not what I would consider a very smart move.

I also give the same regards to you my good sir.

Did you just say I was bad at this game?

Why Gloria, because you are are such a thick skulled ignoramus, with an ice cold heart of stone, what other term could you possible suggest to more accuratly describe you, and for the recourd, i've seen the language you use in this forum, you're in no possition to talk.

TWT:
You almost make it sound like without the minimum wage all the greedy capitalists will force the proletariat to work for slave wages. I too am a student of history and realize the while books like 'The Jungle' pointed out severe injustices to wages, safety, etc. there where already forces like unions, Temperance and pro immigrant groups that were marshaling public opinion to force these businesses to clean up their act. Upton Sinclair was a devout So******t who had another agenda other than trying to help out those in the meat packing business.

There is such a thing as the law of unintended consequences. The majority of people working for minimum wage are High School or Young adults. They benefit from the government forcing business to pay a certain wage when most of the time these kids have little to no experience. This does in fact force businesses to either hire fewer people or do without. Whats wrong with paying a lower wage for someone with little or no experience? Even at a fast food joint, if you have any native intelligence or motivation you can quickly rise up to higher paid positions.

I know the free market is often sneered at, and I am not an advocate of complete 'laissez faire' economics, but don't forget that freedom is the key behind the great economic engines of the world. Besides...if the government is going to set an arbitrary wage businesses must pay, why not make it $50 or $100 per hour? Ridiculous you say? Of course. Companies like Starbucks and others often pay either higher than minimum wage or other attractive benefits to get better people who will provide better service to their customers.

By the way, all the attacks against Gloria for a perfectly well reasoned remark are a perfect example of Marxist/Leninist Theory. Don't address the argument in any constructive way, merely attack the person attempting honest and intelligent debate. If you demonize the messenger you don't have to address the message!

Gustavus you're an idiot. I never call people trying to attempt intelligent debate idiots, but unfortunately, you fit the criteria very well.

The only thing personal attacks are is an example of flawed logic. You comment is also an example of flawed logic. A perfect example of Marxist/Leninist Theory? You expect me to take you seriously after you just likened being an internet flamer to an economic theory?

Next time don't double post either.

Now to your first post.

First paragraph: What's the point here? That unions have been forming? Unions and social groups pushed through reforms and policies like minimum wage, so I don't get where you're going here.

Second paragraph: The reason companies prefer teenagers is because they're only part time and will work for low wages. An adult person requires more than minimum wage to support a basic lifestyle, which is why companies are eager to hire non experienced teenagers for so little. What were you trying to prove with this paragraph again? You've already stated that adults don't want minimum wage jobs, so if minimum wage jobs were abolished, who would be left willing to work those jobs? Illegal immigrants only. Also, you've obviously never held down a job as a teenager, or you'll know that teenagers have limits to how far they can rise, as well as how much seniority they can get.

The rest of your post is also too full of faulty economics and bad logic. If you can't even bother to read up a little on economics before arguing against a pretty significant law then I'm obviously wasting my time. In fact, most of what you've raised I've already dealt with in my response to Gloria, but you obviously haven't read it.

I agree with Kam, you would not know economic theory if it bit you

with out min wage then you might as well make the USa a communist country.. set the prices for everything and pay everyone the same.. and if you do that then the world will be left to ponder when the next world war will be.. and the next world war imo will turn the world against the USA

How does removing the min wage make US communist? I think you mean the other way around, and keep in mind though I am no fan of communisum, with the exseption of lou dobbs no one is trying to start a war with china.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gustavus_2

By the way, all the attacks against Gloria for a perfectly well reasoned remark are a perfect example of Marxist/Leninist Theory. Don't address the argument in any constructive way, merely attack the person attempting honest and intelligent debate. If you demonize the messenger you don't have to address the message!

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Anyone else hear the chorus of sheeps' bleating? I sure do. :)
"Four legs good, two legs better!"
"Four legs good, two legs better!"
"Four legs good, two legs better!"
"Four legs good, two legs better!"

Well, I have to go with Gloria on this one.
From my own experience "out there" in the real business world, the only people affected by minimum wage are kids taking doing summer jobs.

You take, like a waitress. A lot of them work for less than minimum wage, depending on tips to boost their income, and frankly, don't report it.

The demand for skilled workers of any type goes far beyond minimum wage.

I think your either lacking common sense or trusting people too much. Minimum wage doesnt exist to protect an economy or a business, it exists to protect the employeees first and last.

Bare in mind that even in what you would call a developed country like UK, USA, Canada, minimum wage is being broke illegally many time because people arent able to get work elsewhere.

Imagine if this was legal? For Skilled labour this isnt much of an issue as such, but what about Unskilled labour?

JJ
Unskilled labor is outflanked by guess who....illegal immigrants! It's done every day, all the time.

Hell, Madame Speaker-of-the-House, Queen Pelosi, even had her own illegal housekeeper!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cullain

JJ
Unskilled labor is outflanked by guess who....illegal immigrants! It's done every day, all the time.

Hell, Madame Speaker-of-the-House, Queen Pelosi, even had her own illegal housekeeper!

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Thats not true by far, Unskilled labour goes beyond working at a car wash, street cleaners

Unskilled labour includes almost every field of work that doesnt require a degree or highier education.

Target employees, shopping malls, Store Clerks, Shop assistants, Waiters you name it. These are all unskilled jobs relatively speaking in terms of an educational system.
Immagrant workers are people just like everyone, doing both unskilled and skilled labour.

Im an Immagrant in Britain,I work as a Video Editor, i'd go crazy if i couldnt even get 10 dollars an hour!


Although i will say one thing, Immagrant workers have no problem doing jobs locals dont do, and have little complain. I cant speak for america but in Britian, No1 wants to Clean Streets & Schools, Work in a Foodstore, Recycle Center, these are all valid jobs which require filling and UK citizens dont want to do them, so who should?

In January 2009, on ONE DAY, there was a random Freeze Storm in London where the street were covered up with over 10inches of snow... On that day, London employment as a whole Lost 120Million, Heres some fun statistics for you... About that day.

over 85% of British Citizens DID NOT go to work that day
over 95% of Foreign and Immagrant worers DID go to work that day

www.statistics.gov.uk

Just a thought...

Well JJ, there is no quick-and-easy answer to that.

But I can remember in my own past, when there was no work for me, and I'm not 'unskilled', I did a lot of jobs to put food on the table, feed my family, and did them without complaining.

It depends on YOUR attitude. I dug ditches in the middle of winter and was glad of it! Some others might have felt themselves above doing menial labor, but I was glad my folks didn't go hungry that week.

And another part of the formula is, the employers' costs. If he has to pay more than he can afford to, he will eliminate the job. So what do you do then?

I'd rather make $4 an hour than $0 an hour.

Alright, I'm going to go through this again, since no one seems to be reading my posts.

Let's suppose a company needs a certain order filled. By order we can mean work etc. Order is a variable. Say the order is 10x. X can be anything.

It can get a bunch of desperate people for a dollar each to fill it. Each person can fill 1x. Thus, 10 people fill 10x for 10 bucks.

Now, with minimum wage, it must pay 5 bucks (bucks here don't mean dollars, just take it to mean a hypothetical currency). It will now pay 50 bucks for the same job to be done. Or, it could hire 2 people for 5 bucks each, and an initial cost of 5 more for training, to increase productivity to fulfill the 10x order.

So now, where your "nation" (let's take it to mean a set of these 10 people and the company) has filled its entire work order, and still has 8 people left, which can be used to further productivity on some other work order.

Of course, this assumes that a demand for the 8 workers will be found etc.

But still, what happens is your nation increases its productivity.

Now imagine that theres a neighboring country where workers will work for half a buck an hour. In the first case, there would be no incentive for the company to either stay in your nation or to import workers. But if you have minimum wage, and enforce it, not only will there be no incentive to import workers, there will be less incentive to move, as the large numbers of untrained workers will be able to produce much less product than the trained workers your nation has converted to.

Now this is a gross simplification, and only argues against one of the reasons put up here against the minimum wage, but I'm hoping this will prevent similar posts from happening. I've seen way too many posts that argue against the minimum wage AFTER I had posted reasons why a certain argument didn't work without even replying to the points I made, as if the more people who said something without evidence would create evidence out of nowhere.

And yet again you miss the main point, in the country next door, the one that will work or ? a buck a day, the children that are not working in the factories are starving in the streets, those who are not lucky enough to have wealthy parents that is, so provided we do not want children starving in our streets, minimum wage nessesary.

And once again, you fail reading comprehension. Read it again and tell me which side I'm arguing for.

LOL
You're arguing for it, Kami.