In Minnesota politics there is a lot of talk about getting the minimum wage to be increased. This agreement about raising the minimum wage is wrong in many ways.
First question to ask; is it moral to even have the minimum wage?
Lets begin to unpack this particular question. Is it right to take away a person's property by force? Answer No. Is it right to higher someone to take away a person's property by force? Answer No. But what if you vote for someone who is going to take away property from one group of people to another? Is this right? No. Then why should the owners of these companies be forced to pay more for their employees? Is it because they are helping the company to grow? Then if that was the case then, these employees can do one of these four things. The employees could ask for a pay increase and show that company is going to prosper more because the employees are most likely going to say longer with the company. Second, they can look for another job that pays more so the company is going to lose their star employees. Third, they can keep working at that company and "suck it up." Fourthly, they could become their own boss. There is another option that can be played out, they can vote for a politician that would give them a wage increase forced by the government. Back to the beginning of this paragraph, I established that it is wrong to take away property form one person or group to another person or group. So, why is it wrong to increase the wage of the employees by the force of the government? Essentially what is going on is that the government says that a company can higher at a rate of $X.XX or higher. If the market has established the rate lower than that of the government one of two things happen (or a combination of the two). One way is that the company simply won't hire those who are economically worth less than the minimum wage. Or the company is going to raise the prices of their products/services. Which they can, if all of the other companies in the industry is going that route.
Second question to ask; what are the ramifications of government involvement in the wage market?
The ones who get hurt the most are those who are economically worth less than the minimum wage. These are typically people who are below the age of 25 mostly teenagers. Out of these groups that are hurt the most black people get the most of the overall punishment of the minimum wage laws. In order to help the poor people of our society is not to have an minimum wage but to have no laws in regards to the minimum wage. That means businesses can hire a person for $2/hour that is worth $2/hour. Why would I hire a person who is economically only worth $2/hour but have to hire them at $7.25/hour (current minimum wage in MN)? It doesn't make any economical since. In the case of bigger companies, they can "hire" people that are worth less than the minimum wage but they may not get the hours that they need. There are a couple of people that comes to mind that would actually be helped if there were no restrictions of wages. They all have jobs but they only get maybe at the most 10 hours a week because they are worth less than the minimum wage. This is why bigger companies like McDonald's and Walmart is able to "give" jobs to those who are worth less than the mandated wage, they only get maybe 10 hours a week.
One of the "good" aspects of the minimum wage is that those who have the job are able to make it much better than those who don't. This is why there is a lot of support of the minimum wage from those who are the top performers because the companies are either going to cut the amount of people on staff which would bring more work for those who are still around, but at the same time it would bring more stress to these workers that happen to survive the cuts due to minimum wage increases, which in turns the more demanding these businesses will be to the workers. The by product of having the minimum wage is there will be unemployment. I would rather get a job at $2/hour than having no job at, even though it won't be lot but a job is a job, then I can improve my performance and move up in the company or go somewhere else.
These are my thoughts about the whole minimum wage debate brewing in Minnesota politics.
References:
http://reason.com/archives/2013/03/03/the-min-wage-harms-the-most-vulnerable
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