Political DiscussionA place to hold political debates and general discussion. Please remember to always respect the opinions of other members and above all else, be civil.
What do you guys think? I think it should be raised. I read that the Senate has voted against raising it 8 times in the last 7 years but, in that same time, they have increased their pay by $28.000 a year. How's that for some b.s.? They need more money but the poor people who live on minimum wage don't.
Lower the amounts that the senate get paid. Raise the minimum wage for real people.
The only arguement I would see AGAINST raising the min. wage would be that since NAFTA and CEFTA that the twin idiots Bush and Clinton wrote up, American Companies could move their factories to where they could pay other workers less.... and if the min. wage gets bumped up, then it becomes more attractive for them.
I think MW needs to move with the times. Inflation has risen in that time while pay has not. Many of the companies that have MW employees cannot just up and move to Mexico. I'm talking about the fast food joints, cleaning services, and retail employers. Most, if not all, industrial workers are unionized and raising the MW would not affect their salaries in the least.
By raising the minimum wage, you wont be helping the impoverished people. You will be adversely effecting the economy.
Most people who make minimum wage do not save money. They normally spend just about everything they make. If you raise the minimum wage, they will continue spending all they make. And it will take money away from businesses. This will increase the cost of living for everyone because the people will have more money to spend, and the businesses will have to compensate for the loss in profits due to higher wages.
Raising the minimum wage sounds like it will help people, when in fact it will not. Its a complex system, and i wish it were that simple to fix its problems.
Turbo makes some good points, however I feel that it would re-engergize the economy by getting more money flowing... like someone said, MW employees don't save, they spend, and that spending would be injected into the economy. Businesses would probably just spend it on CEO salaries and so forth... or on indian workers. Adding a few bucks isn't going to drasticly affect the local burger king anyways, and it just may help it have better workers, or make happier workers of the ones it has.
just as it can inject more money, it can also hinder it.
many small companies would go out of business if they had to pay more wages. If they go out of business, the people would become unemployed. And that can be detrimental to a society.
I know it wont make a damn bit of difference in a city like LA, but in small communities it will have a huge impact
You know what would happen if MW went up 1 dollar? rent would go up 100 dollars a month. That would leave you with a whole 32 dollars after taxes and would cause small companies to stop and think a lot harder b4 hiring new people. Most small companies don't last 5 years. So more than likely for 32 dollars more a month you could get rid of job opportunities. MW should be a punishment. You decided to not graduate or you decided to not work anywhere long enough to get a raise or you have decided you don't want stress so you work at McDonalds. I know educated people who had to work for MW because of bad times but none of them were stuck there for more than a month or two.
Last edited by nick95673 : 02-21-2006 at 03:44 PM.
What you forget is companies like McDonalds, Subway, UPS Stores are independently owned and operated. So if you raise minimum wage you hurt businessman in your community. A lot of these places don't turn a profit for a couple of years then when they do its nothing worth writing home about.
Don't you understand that their revenues would immediately rise as well? A lot more people would be eating there, it's not like they JUST lose money, it re-injects SOME money into their businesses, but it also revives other businesses a bit, which in turn will revive their workers, which will revive other businesses... like that Subway.
Don't you understand that their revenues would immediately rise as well? A lot more people would be eating there, it's not like they JUST lose money, it re-injects SOME money into their businesses, but it also revives other businesses a bit, which in turn will revive their workers, which will revive other businesses... like that Subway.
Exactly. More disposable income = more consumer spending = more sales for businesses = better economy. Why do you think Bush gave $200 to low income families as part of his tax cuts? So they would spend it and boost the economy.
Trickle-down economics doesn't help the economy grow. When you give money to those who already have it, they tend to save. Saving, and not spending, causes inflation and a slowdown in the economy. Actually, it produces something the Keynesian school thought impossible: stagflation (stagnation and inflation). You don't have to do more than look at countries like Argentina, Poland, and even Japan in the 1990s. When people save, and don't spend, economies start to become stagnant and inflation grows rampantly. In Japan it was a cultural thing because, after WWII, they were taught to save up what they could. Even now, it's hard to get the elder people there to spend instead of save.
Here in the U.S., we have a society built on spending; they spend even what they don't have to spend ("just put it on the card" sound familiar?). So, what happens at small and independently-owned businesses? Prices go up just a bit. Let's use Micky D's as an example, shall we? If Micky D's sees that it's bottom line is being adversely affected by paying their employees a bit more, they will make up for it by increasing the price of their combo's by a quarter or the price of their milkshakes by .15 cents. All in all, it won't really affect inflation that much and the spending of the lower economic classes will more than make up for it.
