Saturday, October 14, 2006

Raise the minimum wage?


Remember what happens when you have a price floor- surpluses and waste develops. At least that is what economists have argued, especially in the labor market for teenagers-that minimum wages prevent unemployment because the cost of their labor is not commensurate with their skill level. But recent studies have shown that this may not be the case, and that real wages for the lowest paid workers have been steadily eroding due to inflation. Lets see what your reaction is to this story.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe that the national minimum wage should be raised since it would help alot of low wage workers get by in their lives. As the guest on the show said inflation has been increasing and these people havent been getting a higher pay and that puts a strain on them since they cant buy as much necessities as they need to. And if anything large corporations like McDonalds have so much money that I dont see how it would hurt to pay up a little more to their workers.

Anonymous said...

its rather shocking that back in 68 miniumin wage proportionaly had more purchasing power then today and the government hasnt done much to keep it at that level. i think if you were to keep the purchasing power up by that level then the economy ould be doing much better. but you cant have the gvernment tell you how to do everything either.

Anonymous said...

minimum wages are fine the way they are... Inflation is not great enough to rais minimum wages. raising them wouls signficantly effect lots of things. buisnesses would have to reevaluate the wages adn raise price for goods the sell cause it would cost more to have them there .

Anonymous said...

For some really annoying reason I can't listen to this audio. If I try to open it with quicktime it says that its not a video...and with windows media player and says that it cannot read that kind of file. How am I supposed to open it?, because I really wanted to comment on this issue, but I feel that I should listen to the thing first.

Anonymous said...

i think that it would be effective to raise minnimum wages to both help low wage workers and to possibly increase the intrests of workers to seek jobs and helkp develope more economic growth within the country

Anonymous said...

i think minimum wages should be raised. i dont know anyone that works for minimum wage so i dont know what thats like, but when i hear someone works fo rlike 8 dollars or even 10 dollars and hour it makes me cringe. because im a poolboy. so if someones working for minimum wage, which is like 6 bucks, tahts bad, and they need more dough. this would also help alot of minorities and alot of mcdonalds workers and alot of ppl that work at waldbaums get more stuff, and why do these places feel the need to pay there employees like poop. its just wrong. i pay my employees like 15 dollars an hour. thats whats up.

just looked it up, federal minimum wage is 5.15, ouch

Anonymous said...

i think rasing minimum wages would be a good idea as long as it is not by too much. take for instance teens who have to save for college while going to high school they can't have a full time job and if they are only being payed minimum wage it makes it very hard to save up for a good school so that they can get better jobs and not be stuck at minimum wage this would all not be a problem if inflation had not occured over the last ten years but it has and going to college certinly isn't getting cheaper either

Anonymous said...

I believe the minimum wage should be raised. If the inflation level has caused the minimum wage's value to decrease by 20% in a fairly short amount of time,(and this is at a time of which costs of living are rising incredibly) Raising wages will increase spare capital for those workers which will therefore be reinvested into the economy. This will also allow the government to raise more tax revenue since there will be more incomes on the books to extract money from. My only concern with this adjustment is the development of more black markets. If companies/business owners refuse to pay these wages, many will probably look to employ people off the books so they can avoid this regulation.

Anonymous said...

I think that as time progresses minimum wage should be changed to meet the economic status of the country. Where as is used to be that minimum wage was sufficient to workers and could still have the ability to purchase the basic nessecities, today with prices rising in all areas of which one would need money it makes it impossible for one to survive. Especially with new demands in the work force specifically that its eaisier to get a job if you go to college and if you are healthy people who cant afford these things because they work off of minimum wage lose out in the long run because they are losing as much as they are gaining with minimum wage