By Gil Milanes
Increasing minimum wage sounds appealing to most people earning low wages, but it actually harms more than it helps.
There is no point of increasing minimum wage when everything will go up. The illusion of earning more money is facetious.
Most people agree that minimum wage should be raised.
The idea of earning more money and having extra money on the side sounds very fascinating.
What people fail to think about are the consequences that increasing minimum wage brings. Companies are forced to raise the prices of their products landlords put up rent, gas prices go up, goods cost more, everything goes up and the poor continue to be poor.
The rich continue to be rich. Some companies lay off workers, and double the work for employees, while other companies opt to replace workers with machinery.
Increasing the minimum wage too much can even be dangerous.
In a study title Effects of the Minimum Wage on Employment Dynamics by Jonathan Meer and Jeremy West, they concluded that “minimum wage increase of ten percent reduces job growth in the state by around 0.5 percentage points… a ten percent increase to the minimum wage results in a reduction of approximately one quarter of the net job growth rate.”
Robots in the long run are cheaper and employers don’t have to provide breaks, vacation, medical insurance, pay overtime or provide any benefits.
We live in a world where technology is taking over labor work and it’s matter of time before robots leaves many of us unemployed.
During elections politicians use minimum wage as a tactic to gain votes. If politicians really cared about voters, they would create laws or policies that prevent companies from increasing prices on products or at least balance the economy somehow.
At the end of the day most politicians are in it for the money they gain from donors during office and not to serve the American people.
Even those politicians with good intentions end up hurting the working class because they don’t think of the effects of increasing minimum wage.
Increasing the minimum wage also affects those employees earning a little more than the minimum wage.
When lawmakers force an increase in the minimum wage, companies have no option but to comply with the laws. Companies do have the option to keep everyone else earning above the minimum wage at the same pay rate.
In that case, the company’s ends up saving money because most likely they will increase prices on the product to compensate the increase on the minimum wage but those employees who were earning more will now have less money incoming.
In any way, shape or form is this article meant to sound like I’m against minimum wage.
I do believe that before we support an increase in minimum wage, we should do our research and take in account all the disadvantages the increase will bring to our lives.
Minimum wage should give people enough to get by in life. Surpassing the limit disrupts the economy and it makes it more competitive for people to maintain jobs.
