Question

Pick a side and argue for or against raising the minimum wage. Use your knowledge of price floors and find an article to back up your point of view.

If the minimum wage from 1961 had been adjusted for inflation, it would be $22 per hour today.

The Massachusetts minimum wage will rise to $15 an hour over five years, and a new paid family and medical leave program will be introduced, under a bill Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law.

Massachusetts is now the third state — after California and New York — with a pay floor on the way to $15 an hour.

The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, which advocates for higher minimum wages, has estimated that a quarter of the Massachusetts workforce — about 840,000 workers — would see raises as a result of a $15 minimum wage by 2023.

Opponents of higher minimum wages say they just increase labor costs, which force employers to then raise prices and/or cut other wages, benefits or jobs. Some proponents of higher pay floors also worry about the untested $15 minimum in locations outside high-cost labor markets.

The new law will also raise the minimum wage for tipped workers, over five years, to $6.75.

In addition, the measure — over the same five years — phases out time-and-a-half pay for Sunday and holiday hourly workers. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are the only states that mandate time-and-a-half for Sunday workers.

Answer 1

Minimum Wages Introduction:-

The minimum wages is a program developed across most countries of the world, into increasing the overall wellbeing of the most vulnerable sections of the society and making sure, that the society maintains a basic minimum standard of living.

This standard of living would include basic payments for housing and other items such as food, education, healthcare etc. Minimum Wages was introduced across most countries to avoid companies from underpaying employees that work on extremely low salaries.

The main reason behind this was setting a price floor or a bare minimum which is must to be paid to the employees and then increasing this with the levels of inflation so that the same level of prosperity can be maintained.

Case Specifics and Opinions:-

Over the years, most countries have had their own standards in deciding the minimum wages of the country and the United States has always been at the top of the list for advocating these changes.

Being a developed country, it is extremely important that a larger section of the society which is employed receives wages in proportion to the cost of living which is why the rates have increased over a period of time as described in the case study to 15$ and above, and also include benefits to be paid for employees working on Sundays.

It is important to realize therefore, that these changes are extremely important in the society in my opinion and even when corporations suggest that it increases their labor costs and forces them to take production to other areas across the globe, the problem should be dealt with stringently.

Corporations need to realize that having an employee at wages lower than the standard limits or price floors set by the government would harm the general public which can further result in lower demand. They fail to understand the counter argument that lower availability of capital and purchasing power among this group would also dampen their own demand respectively.

In my opinion therefore, to ensure that a country can maintain basic integrity of its workforce and allow a standard of living which is acceptable to all and does not cause serious problems in the economy minimum wages are extremely important.

How to Deal With the Perception of Unemployment and Companies going abroad for production.

One can easily take into consideration, the policies of the Trump administration in making sure that minimum wages are maintained while corporations can be set right.

Corporations often argue about rising labor costs and the fact that they have the option of taking production channels abroad, but in companies like the United States which is predominantly technologically advanced, reciprocal taxes is an efficient way of tackling with the problem of rogue companies which look to produce abroad and sell domestically due to differences in labor costs.

While Developing and Underdeveloped countries may have significantly lower cost of production due to lower wages acts and laws, companies should not be allowed to get away with their responsibility of paying minimum wages to its employees.

The Trump administration’s policies of Country First are an important example in which reciprocal taxes are placed on companies which do not agree to produce within the country to make sure that they incur additional costs if they take their production to other countries.

This ensures, that the concepts of minimum wages are strictly adhered to and the larger society can maintain its financial wellbeing respectively.