Against Raising Minimum Wage Essay
Against Raising Minimum Wage
People everywhere are voicing out that we need to increase minimum wage, again. They say that an increase will have a minor impact on jobs but there are no facts to back them up. The impact of raising minimum wage has been studied since the beginning, and has been concluded that raising minimum wage hurts the poor, and helps the rich. Raising minimum wage takes away jobs; especially the low-skilled and young worker, keeps people on welfare, and also encourages high school students to drop out. When you look at the facts, is it really worth raising minimum wage? All credible research has come to the same conclusions, and these I will discuss with you.
Poverty will rise
When minimum wage is raised, businesses have to raise the price on whatever products or services they offer, to offset the loss of profits from having to pay the employees more money. With products more expensive, consumers will not be able to afford to buy as much as they normally would, and businesses will start to go under; causing a huge loss of jobs. Small businesses will start going out of business first, and will eventually lead to bigger businesses. Take Visteon for example, in Connersville, Indiana. Visteon was one of the biggest employers around this area. 900 plus jobs were lost when Visteon went out of business. I’m sure several of you in here know someone that has been lost their job from Visteon. Luckily, they were able to draw unemployment, but that is only a portion of what they normally got paid. I personally know quite a few people who decided to go to college after being laid off of Visteon, in hopes of having a better future. Even the pensions that Visteon is paying out, is very poor compared to what the employees should have gotten. Most of you can understand just how badly Visteon going out of business affected us in Eastern Indiana. Everywhere you go these days, you see for sale signs and out of business signs on business and houses, and very
People everywhere are voicing out that we need to increase minimum wage, again. They say that an increase will have a minor impact on jobs but there are no facts to back them up. The impact of raising minimum wage has been studied since the beginning, and has been concluded that raising minimum wage hurts the poor, and helps the rich. Raising minimum wage takes away jobs; especially the low-skilled and young worker, keeps people on welfare, and also encourages high school students to drop out. When you look at the facts, is it really worth raising minimum wage? All credible research has come to the same conclusions, and these I will discuss with you.
Poverty will rise
When minimum wage is raised, businesses have to raise the price on whatever products or services they offer, to offset the loss of profits from having to pay the employees more money. With products more expensive, consumers will not be able to afford to buy as much as they normally would, and businesses will start to go under; causing a huge loss of jobs. Small businesses will start going out of business first, and will eventually lead to bigger businesses. Take Visteon for example, in Connersville, Indiana. Visteon was one of the biggest employers around this area. 900 plus jobs were lost when Visteon went out of business. I’m sure several of you in here know someone that has been lost their job from Visteon. Luckily, they were able to draw unemployment, but that is only a portion of what they normally got paid. I personally know quite a few people who decided to go to college after being laid off of Visteon, in hopes of having a better future. Even the pensions that Visteon is paying out, is very poor compared to what the employees should have gotten. Most of you can understand just how badly Visteon going out of business affected us in Eastern Indiana. Everywhere you go these days, you see for sale signs and out of business signs on business and houses, and very
Cited: Wikipedia. “Minimum Wage” Web. 12 July, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage United States House of Representatives. “JEC report” Web. 30 June, 2010. http://www.house.gov/jec/cost-gov/regs/minimum/case.htm MSN. “The recovery seems to be losing its pop” Web. 12, July 2010. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38034014/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/ Yahoo Finance. “ 10 brands that may disappear in 2011” Web. 12, July 2010 http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/110018/10-brands-that-may-disappear-in-2011 Reuters. “Thousands lose jobs due to higher federal minimum wage” Web. 12, July 2010 http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/05/14/thousands-lose-jobs-due-to-higher-federal-minimum-wage/