We have a lot more people in the workforce today than we use to, we have a lot more immagrent workers, women workers, minority workers, than ever before, due to civil rights, liberty, and changes in the household.
IMO, minimum wage is hurting the core of this country badly.
1. Traditional workforce where man goes to work, can provide for family, wife stays home, man stays at company for many years, gets pension and retires, is over.
2. Poor families who have children that work to provide for the household must leave school and better eduactaion to provide for family. They get stuck in low wage jobs, cannot afford to buy education, and this creates a cycle of poor Americans stuck in a position where they cannot gain better skills, cannot move up, and don't get paid enough to support a household.
3. The theory that prices will drastically increase due to paying employees $11 an hour is not true. Prices my raise by 2-3% but that is already happening anyway. If prices increase while people cannot afford them, this stunts our growth just as much. Studies have confirmed that increasing the wage to 11 an hour would allow more people to buy goods in the Market while prices would not increase very drastically. This would cause a huge shift in consumer spending by creating a higher demand in the market, thus raising the standard of living for everyone.
4. College student loan debt is also cripiling our economy. If we have one third of students in debt, one third people who cannot afford to better their skills and get paid better, and 1/3 of people who have an education but get underemployed. We create a system where taking out loans and financing become rarities, new cars won't get bought, houses wont get financed, and expensive necessities will devalue while the majority of Americans won't be able to afford them.
5. If we don't figure out how to increase the standard of living in America for the majority of the citizens. Our country will not be the powerhouse it onces was, considering how quickly the EU and other nations are catching up to us. Businesses owners will have to sacrifice paying a little more in wages in order to keep our economy sustainable. Off shoring may be a better benifit for your company but this is precicely the problem we are facing today. If we don't benefit our own people and allow them to work for a wage they can benefit from, we devalue our own assets while becoming crippled from the inside.
I really just posted this for laughs. But it is so painfully true that it really sparks the question of peoples labor compared to the value of that labor, and what businesses owners can get away with paying them. But IMO, business owners shoot themselves in the foot as a whole if they don't pay full time workers wages that can create a higher demand in the economy.
I understand that small companies do have to pay a minimum value to employees to succeed and they should be aware of that. But my arguement is geared to multinational and multibillion dollar firms.
Just to clarify.
