I think getting rid of the minimum wage entirely is a much better idea than rasing it since it would let more people get jobs but right now the current wage seems to be doing alright so if it ain't broke don't fix it

I'm confused, you are saying that you'd like to see the minimum wage abolished but then you're saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it" implying it should stay the same..?

As for job creation yes, it would bring companies back the united states if they can pay the same and ship for less. However the united states unemployment rate is only around 5.5%, I may be wrong about it and if so please correct me.

Then protection for workers would be gone, if your boss puts your wages to $2/hr you wont be able to live. So you quit, someone who needs money dearly will take the job and since there is always someone who wants to work many other businesses could do the same.

What i ment was the current system doesn't need to be changed it seems to be working fine right now
And lets say your boss did lower you pay to 2$ a hour if it was a job that anyone can do and then i could understand but $2 like you said isn't enough to live nobody's going to take that job except for people who dont exactly qualify for like homeless people if there are a bunch of unqualified homeless people working at a business it's going to lose money so id think it would level out more than what you're implying. Also if you're coming to work starving unclean and sluggish your employer won't keep you

Why is this a bad thing? If a someone can do your job for $2/hr why should businesses be forced to pay whatever the current minimum wage is?

Perhaps to acknowledge the benefits helps you understand the benefits better, but yes, it may well be harmful to the middle class, let me go into detail below.


When only looking at it that way, yes it might be a bad thing to increase minimum wage, but it does come with benefits, see below.


Now, what does increasing the pay for the weakest in society aim to do, well lets begin with the benefits for society at large; it seems to be a worldwide phenomena that the link between income inequality and crime is changing, however within the poorest part of society crime (often association with such) seems to occur way often than in the middle class and above. (1)

That said, I believe rising minimum wage is not without a cost for society. The employment rate may be held at current levels, but entry level jobs for the young especially will most likely be harder to come by, and jobs for the weakest in society might be the cost of increasing the minimum wage, as such without proper legislation and a socialistic view (2) to begin with I believe the damage caused by increasing minimum wage can be devastating for the US economy.

(1): I have not chosen sources that I would refer to in any academic work, these are mainly google finds in 5 mins or less.
https://web.stanford.edu/group/scspi...olentCrime.pdf
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/D...Inequality.pdf
https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibr...3/9909levi.pdf
http://scholarlycommons.law.northwes...3&context=jclc

(2): When I say socialistic view I refer to the political landscape and it's effect on the Scandinavian countries. However, I believe the discussion of the benefits and disadvantages of socialism has been the subject of a awful many threads already.

Dude, don't just randomly post links that you clearly HAVE NOT READ... That is not how citations work!

Is this even true though?

Let's look at the Stanford link:

Is the relationship between wealth and crime actually strong enough to rely on? Looking at the homicide vs income inequality graph, we can see it's pretty damn loose, what's more in USA it's pretty damn loose too. Do the statistics even show that more wealth = less crime? The graph is actually homicide vs income inequality - a large value of inequality shows a lot of disparity, not a lot of poor people, thus saying that the graph shows poor = more crime is incorrect, it actually shows more disparity = more crime.

Would raising the minimum wage actually give us all more money? If instead, as many predict, it will cause businesses to downsize then unemployment will increase along with crime as the stanford link shows.

Literally the first line of the worldbank link is "We investigate the robustness and causality of the link between income inequality and violent crime across countries"

Moving on, Levit S "The Changing Relationship between Income and Crime Victimization" - this article is about victimization, and actually concludes that poor people used to be unlikely victims of property orientated crime but are increasingly targeted, but the link between neighbourhood income and crime has WEAKENED (aka this is evidence counter to your assertion, this is why you should read your citations!!!) - "there is no relationship between median family income in the neighborhood and homicide rates in the 1990s."

Lastly you linked an article from Northwestern University, this article starts off interestingly: "The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that there is both a hereditary and an environmental component to the relation of social class and criminality. This analysis is possible because of the availability of data on a population of adoptees in Denmark. " (remembering from the earlier stanford article that Denmark has low income disparity and crime). I'm not going to discuss the article in depth but: "On the experiential side it is known that lower class status is connected to a variety of crime-associated characteristics such as less intellectual stimulation and lower educational attainment, greater disparity between opportunities and aspirations and greater likelihood of criminal associations. " So would decreasing income disparity between lower and middle class really help? No, it wouldn't.


I doubt employment rate could be held, I have no citation but I have read articles saying that businesses were planning to downsize in sanfran (?) if there was a minimum wage raise.

Mayn. Minimum wage jobs are not meant for people to make a comfortable living off of. Want better pay? Work your ass off and get a better job.

Sho nuff

Can't tell if this is a joke or not but regardless, it's not as simple as "Get a better job". The jobs in which most of us start off doing take no higher education to apply to (ex. Dish washing, cooking, serving...), there are higher paying jobs which don't require college however most of those positions aren't available to the masses. If you're paid a slave labor salary how do expect them to just "work your ass off" when they are already working 40-60 hours a week?

Edit: The 40-60 hours a week is not applicable to everyone, from personal experience with friends and family I've seen how long hours don't pay off with low salary.

Oh shut up. People come into this country with barely the clothes off their back and no education, no friends. Yet they come and work. And they pay through their education and to a better career. Yet we have those who live on McDonald's pay and child support. I'm talking adults here.

There should be no reason you can't progress in today's society. Minimum wage jobs are not for living on, but as a stepping stone into a better future. Whether it be a summer job, a second job in college, or idk whatever, it should not be something to settle, but to help push you forward into a better, more productive future. I think minimum wage is fine as it is.
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(America only guarentee)
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Booker Washington, for example, was an uneducated Black man who worked very little pay. However, he payed through college while working there and eventually took classes as well. He became a professor and later, the founder of his own college.
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Not sayin min wage is bad. It should be uncomfortable though. No one should settle with these jobs.