Hi Could you give me a response and reply to my classmate about this topic: Disc
ID: 1113717 • Letter: H
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Hi Could you give me a response and reply to my classmate about this topic: Discussion C: Minimum Wage
classmate post #1:
If minimum wage was increased, it would benefit employees and help boost the economy in certain ways. If employees are paid more they'll have more money to spend, and the money that is spent means that more money will be cycled into the economy. Minimum wage is technically supposed to be the literal minimum wage given to any one person that one can live off of. But there is a big difference between state and federal minimum wage. Since all states have different taxes and different living situations, not all minimum wage can necessarily be across the board. Oregon, being in a housing crisis with huge property taxes on top of it, needs a higher minimum wage. As rent increases dramatically, the overall cost of living is much higher than in a state such as Arizona, whose cost of living (and property taxes) isn't nearly as extreme as Oregon's. So depending on the exact situation and state, they may not even need a wage increase; but it is important to keep up with inflation along with considering the conditions on the overall populace in each state. Opponents say that many businesses cannot afford to pay their workers more, and will be forced to close, lay off workers, or reduce hiring;. An increase could also make it more difficult for low-skilled workers with little or no work experience to find jobs or become upwardly mobile; and that raising the minimum wage at the federal level does not take into account regional cost-of-living variations.
"In January 2016, Seattle’s minimum wage jumped from $11 an hour to $13 for large employers, the second big increase in less than a year. New research released Monday by a team of economists at the University of Washington suggests the wage hike may have come at a significant cost: The increase led to steep declines in employment for low-wage workers, and a drop in hours for those who kept their jobs. Crucially, the negative impact of lost jobs and hours more than offset the benefits of higher wages — on average, low-wage workers earned $125 per month less because of the higher wage, a small but significant decline(Casselman)."
This has been an on-going battle that is complicated not just for the employee side, but for the business side as well. When finding an alternative policy to combat minimum wage, all sides, business, individual, and political sides need to be recognized and met. I personally think $15 was a little too high from the get-go even though it's needed on the individual side. Working at a local business and viewing the costs and profit of the business, I do not believe the business would have been able to manage $15 for all employees, they would have had to let some people go; which is one of the major problems of increasing the wages, at least too quickly. Minimum wage needs to be raised as cost of living goes up, but it is important to do it subtly as to not negatively affect the local and federal economy.
classmate post #2
In these days, there are many discussions about if the minimum wage should increase or not. Considering that there are still some states that have a minimum wage of $7.25, and have not increased since 2009 (Doyle). People think that the minimum wage should increase to $15 dollars per hour. “The benefits of gradually phasing in a $15 minimum wage by 2024 would be far-reaching, lifting pay for tens of millions of workers and reversing decades of growing pay inequality” (“Why America Needs a $15 Minimum Wage”). There are some benefits and disadvantages once the minimum wage increase. Some disadvantage will be that people think that rising up the minimum wage employees will need to work more or they might be unemployed. Based on Alison Doyle, “Opponents believe that increases to the minimum wage will place a burden on employers, especially small companies, resulting in slower growth and decreased levels of employment” (Doyle). According to Chad Stone, “At the same time, employers facing a higher minimum wage might demand less labor, leading to more joblessness and lost income in families with low-wage workers” (Stone). However, there are people who are not a favor of increasing the minimum wage, there are still some people who want to increase the min wage. “A 2015 CBS/New York Times survey found that 71 percent of Americans favored an increase to the minimum wage” (Doyle). Increasing the minimum wage can change a lifestyle of many low-income employers. According to the author of Pros and Cons of Raising the Minimum Wage, “An increase in the minimum wage raises the standard of living for impoverished workers. The minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation. As a result, the pay of many workers, particularly those with families of three or more people, are now well below the poverty level" (Doyle). Once that the minimum wage increase there will be some changes in the social part for workers and the economic part for the companies. “The report from the CBO suggests that raising the minimum wage will help individual low wage earners while having somewhat of a negative impact on businesses” (Patterson). I'm my opinion, I think that making some changes will always have some benefits and disadvantages, but if we can find a solution that can bring benefits and try to minimize the disadvantage will be a good solution. Increasing the minimum wage will help a lot on the part that low-income family can make some improvements in their lifestyle. However, there will have some disadvantages for companies since they will need to pay more for all their employees. In my point of view will be that the minimum wage does not need to increase a big amount in one time, it can increase little by little. In this way will not affect a lot in the companies, and it will also help a little the low-income families.
example of reply to a classmate:
Discussion C Mia Do posted Nov 25, 2017 12:10 AM Subscribe Increasing the minimum wage is the important things for all people. There are many benefits of it. First, an increase in the minimum wage raises the standard of living for impoverished workers as it raising about $10.10 per hour can make about 900,00 people out of poverty. It just more dollar for an hour but it can be able to help them to support themselves and their family. Second, raising the minimum wage is not only will it raise many low wage workers out of poverty, but will help the overall economy. As naturally that the more money the work earns from the wages, the more than they spend as consumers. But if it is paying too much, it can have the negative impacts. As increasing the wages, it can be harmful to businesses especially for small, independently own stores. When they don't have enough profts to pay for the worker, they always need to reduce some of the workers. There are the pro and the cons of increasing minimum wage. People can have a lot of reason to raise or not raise the wage. But I think that not raising the wage can be the better one as the wage is raising, everything that in the market will be raised too. People may not get any benefit from it then, why people need to thinking too much about it. Also, there are no law or policy that have outcome satisfactory to most parties involved. How Does the Minimum Wage Impact the Economy?" Talent Economy, 16 June 2017 www.talenteconomy.io/2017/06/14/minimum-wage-impact-economy/ Minimum Wage ProCon.Org." Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?, minimum-wage.procon.org/ Disadvantages of Minimum wages." Economics Help, www.economicshelp.org/labour- markets/disadvantages-minimum-wages/ Reply to Thread Show: Filter by: All Posts | Clear flters Tracy Van Hi Mia lagree with you that increasing minimum wage could be benefits for people. It helps them to make more money to support their family and raise their standard cost living. Beside that, it still has negative aspect about it, especially small businesses. If they cannot afford the cost to pay to employees they will fire them. It could impact to overall economy since unemployment rate will be increasing. It hard to determine which is thegood answer for this issues since everything has advantagesand disadvantage Thanks for sharing your opinion!! ReplyExplanation / Answer
Minimum wage issue is one of the hot topic for discussion in political discourse today. Many argue that increasing minimum wage will not result in job loss while others argue that it will result in job loss. The economic effects of increasing minimum wage are controversial. If we increase minimum wage it will help in erasing income inequality & bring millions of people out of poverty. Some expert also suggest that increase in minimum wage will boost morale of labors which will result in higher productivity. Though it’s not a justified statement. In US since 2009 there has been very less increase in wages, as states are free to decide their own limit considering different tax structures & living conditions over federal level. States like Washington & Oregon have highest level of $9.2 whereas states like Georgia & Minnesota have level of $5. It is also true that increase in minimum wage will increase consumption as employees will have more money to spend.
The unfavorable side of minimum wage increase is financial pressure it puts on small firms. With increase in minimum wage employers face higher labor cost and are forced to decrease other production expenses. This also leads to reduced working hours for employees which can also result in less production. Since firms are forced to spend more on labor the cost of production goes up which will results in higher inflation. Product prices will go up & this will result in bad economic effects.
There are various theories regarding minimum wage. Some suggest it will circulate more money in economy thus reducing unemployment while few point to the economic theory of supply & demand & suggest it will increase unemployment rate. If we take example of Germany which increased its minimum wage to $11.5 in 2015, mainstream economist were wary of such increase & predicted a significant amount of job losses. However what happened was exact opposite. Unemployment in Germany has not increased but continuously going down. Minimum wage workers will be the biggest beneficiary of increase in wages. Studies show that increase for low workers doesn’t significantly reduce turn over. Studies suggest that moderate increase have no measurable impacts on jobs.
There can be some long run negative effects on employment as employers will shift to labor saving methods. The process of automation will get faster resulting in less human intervention. Jobs requiring repetitive work may be replaced by substituting technology. The cost of minimum wage increase are often passed on to consumers. Small businesses tend to other methods to protect their bottom line & stay relevant in the business.
Overall what we can conclude is that there should be a thorough study conducted considering all factors affecting economy before any increase is proposed. Rate of unemployment, inflation, GDP growth & certain social factors to be taken into consideration while deciding minimum wage increase.