Arguments for a $15.00 minimum wage
A lot of people consider America to be the greatest country in the world, but I feel like we have a long way to go if we're to live up to that title. Right now, America — compared to other developed countries — simply doesn't provide a living wage to all its citizens. There's really no excuse for that, as minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation for the past century.
Yes, $15.00 is a large increase, but if we kept it the price up with inflation it would greatly exceed that.
Many other developed countries offer a much higher minimum wage than America does. Australia has a minimum wage of over ~$16.00 USD per hour, and even if you want to adjust for cost of living it still equates to more than $12.00 USD per hour — and that's before considering the extra benefits of healthcare, etc.
As a country, I think we'd be happy to pay 77¢ more for a cheeseburger if we knew that the person cooking that burger was given a salary that they could live of. If you're working full-time, you should be able to afford the basic necessities to live. There really isn't any excuse as to why we haven't gotten to that point yet.
I hear a lot of people complain about the amount of people that we have on welfare. However, when you think about it, the U.S. is currently subsidising its citizens to fail. Right now, people could have much greater standard of living by living off government assistance, compared to what they could get if they worked a full-time minimum wage job. You simply can't have it both ways. If you want less tax dollars going towards government welfare, then you have to be willing to improve the minimum wage in this country. If we don't give people a living wage, we'll simply have more and more people subsisting off of government assistance.
When you give minimum wage workers a higher disposable income, they're more likely to inject that money back into the economy compared to somebody wealthier. By raising the minimum wage, we're putting more money into people's pockets and creating a stronger economy.
Arguments against a minimum wage increase
The real minimum wage in this country is actually $0.00, and when we impose an artificial floor of $15.00 per hour, it will see a lot more people unemployed. As a country, we need to stop buying into knee-jerk rhetoric, and begin exploring issues in-depth before coming to a rational decision.
Right now, we're ostracizing these politicians who don't advocate for a higher minimum wage and making them out to be villains. They aren't.
If you raise the minimum wage to over fifteen dollars per hour, all you're going to be doing is pricing low skilled workers out of the job market. Minimum wage was never meant for adults to live off of; it was introduced merely as a price floor so that unskilled workers (i.e. teenagers) could enter the job market, gain valuable work experience and eventually move up. It was not meant to be a living wage; it's just there as a way for somebody new to enter the job market.
If we raise the minimum wage, we're going to see a lot of people laid off. The big bad corporations are going to be just fine; they'll find ways to automate the labour that they just laid off. Who we'll really be hurting are the small business owners that can't afford to pay $15.00 per hour to all of their labourers. It'll kill small businesses.
The way the free market works is that you're supposed to be compensated for the skills and the labour that you bring, and unfortunately there's absolutely no way that someone who flips burgers is bringing in more than $30,000 value to McDonalds. I know that sounds harsh, but your salary should fit the value that you offer. If we raise the minimum wage to over $15.00 per hour, we'll be overcompensating people for their work. From an economic standpoint, it's just not feasible.
I won't even touch on the fact that his will have a large impact on immigration, and you'll see foreigners begin to flood the borders because they know that no matter how unskilled they are, they'll be able to take home $15.00 per hour. This means minimum wage workers are going to be competing with even more people.
Which side of the debate are you on?
Where do you stand on the minimum wage issue? I know it's a very contentious issue within America right now, but it's an important one. I've made this post to create an open dialog on the issue itself and to hear what other people think.