9spaceking (PRO)My argument is simple. The economic market regulates itself quite well. Just as we impose no price limitations, no minimum wage ought to be fine to commit. When you have a minimum wage, you force the employers to devote more money than they are potentially willing to. Various workers would be at risk, as they may not meet the standards imposed. Some money is better than no money. Therefore we should have no minimum wage.
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2020-12-05 08:36:19
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RishiD123 (CON)Con would like to argue that a minimum wage should be a requirement for any economy to thrive. If there is no minimum wage workers would be exploited by their employers and they wouldn't be paid as much as their work is worth. Whereas in a society with a minimum wage there is a floor that all employers have to meet no matter what kind of work their employee's do. Also a minimum wage boosts the economy as it allows for low-earners to spend more and increase consumer demand.
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2020-12-05 08:43:30
| Speak Round9spaceking (PRO)Frederic Bastiat wrote a famous argument in the 19th century introduced the “broken window fallacy”.
In Bastiat's tale, a boy breaks a window. The townspeople looking on decide that the boy has actually done the community a service because his father will have to pay the town's glazier to replace the broken pane. The glazier will then spend the extra money on something else, jump-starting the local economy. The onlookers come to believe that breaking windows stimulates the economy.
By forcing his father to pay for a window, the boy has reduced his father's disposable income. His father will not be able to purchase new shoes or some other luxury goods. Thus, the broken window might help the glazier, but at the same time, it robs other industries and reduces the amount spent on other goods. Bastiat also noted that the townspeople should have regarded the broken window as a loss of some of the town's real value. Moreover, replacing something that has already been purchased represents a maintenance cost, not a purchase of new goods, and maintenance doesn't stimulate production.
This is more commonly expressed today as the law of unintended consequences -- ”the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Too much economic thinking is one dimensional. Just do this and there will be no detrimental effects, but person “A” will benefit. But every time we make adjustments to the economy, we end up impacting the structure of production and capital in unseen ways, distorting it and tilting it away from its optimal point (expressed through supply and demand and the clearing price). The minimum wage and the arguments used to support it fall directly into this trap. In my view Con has an impossible task. For his argument to work “on balance”, he must prove that there will be less “bad” unintended consequences from such a measure, compared to “good” intended consequences. But we will only see measures on how it effects person “A”, never on “B to Z”.
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2020-12-07 06:16:23
| Speak RoundRishiD123 (CON)The broken window fallacy's main focus is that a certain action may result in immediate positive change but in the future there will be negative repercussions. However having a minimum wage and possibly increasing it over time will not only boost the economy in the short term but it will also have sustainable long term effects. In this article, https://www.epi.org/publication/minimum-wage-testimony-feb-2019/ , an economist has made calculations suggesting that the economy does indeed promote economic growth. In fact, raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars in the coming years would lift around 40 million Americans out of poverty.
To address Pro's points, they've made no specific argument as to why there should be no minimum wage. Rather they've instead focused on the fact that having a minimum wage and expecting it to bolster the economy is one-dimensionally simple or naive, which in fact isn't true as it is clearly shown that it does indeed stimulate world economies.
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2020-12-07 09:46:24
| Speak Round9spaceking (PRO)There may be some articles that support the positive effects of minimum wage, but overall it will not work. A strong article that culminates many studies together finds that the majority of implementation fails. From https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w12663/w12663.pdf: "A sizable majority
of the studies surveyed in this monograph give a relatively consistent (although not always statistically
significant) indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages. In addition, among the
papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment
effects, both for the United States as well as for many other countries"
As you can see, the minimum wage has problems with employment. It's like I said. Employers would want to hire less people due to forced to paying more money. So if we have a minimum wage than we risk the workers losing out. It's better to have some money than no money at all.
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2020-12-07 12:50:28
| Speak RoundRishiD123 (CON)Pro has said that a minimum wage will deter employers from hiring more workers. However, this is an unsettled issue that still needs more investigation. There is no conclusive evidence suggesting that the minimum wage does indeed reduce or improve employment. In fact there are several conflicting studies on this issue like this one, https://www.nber.org/papers/w4509, that surveyed over 400 fast food restaurants in New Jersey after a minimum wage increase and found that it had no significant impact on the levels of employment.
In general I would like to argue that a minimum wage can reduce poverty, increase productivity, and combat markets with monopsony employers.
1. A minimum wage reduces relative poverty because it provides the lowest income earners the ability to meet the financial threshold of how much it costs to live in a certain area.
2. It also increases productivity because, as the efficiency wage theory states, higher wages provide an incentive for workers to work more and thus become more productive. This boost of productivity not only helps individual families thrive but it also improves the efficiency of the entire economy.
3. Lastly, a minimum wage can stop large multi-billion dollar companies from exploiting workers especially in markets without much competition. In monopsonic markets companies can drive down wages by hiring fewer workers but with a minimum wage they won't be able to conduct such practices.
In general, the aforementioned reasons let Con conclude that a minimum wage is necessary in all economies.
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2020-12-09 12:02:16
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