Minimum Wage

Does raising a persons’ hourly wage to a federal minimum wage of $10.10 really help? From my own personal experience I can say that moving from a low wage earner to a higher wage earner has improved my family’s life. It enabled me to send to my child to a university and allowed her a career. It has given me the disposable income to pursue further education myself. This may not have happened overnight but it happened.  Increasing the wage you earn does improve your chances to not only get what you need, but to also get what you want. It affords you the ability to pursue happiness, one of the inalienable rights we as Americans hold so dear. It offers freedom another inalienable right.

I decided to do a little research on how the ‘other’ half sees the minimum wage increase. Judith Sloan , contributing economic editor of The Australian advocates this point of view by expressing that “…higher minimum wages lead to lower employment, fewer hours and less training for affected workers” (Sloan, 2013). However, the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Berkeley University California, says “Our results indicate that the negative employment effects in national –level studies reflect spatial heterogeneity and improper construction of control groups” (Dube A., 2010). Who do you believe? There is no undisputable evidence that raising the minimum wage causes businesses to shut down or that the loss of government assistance programs correlates with an increase of $10.10 an hour.

References

Dube, A. L. (2010, November). IRLE Working Paper No. 157-07. Retrieved February 2015, from "Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties": http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf

Sloan, J. (2013, March 12). At A Minimum, Wage Rises Are A Cost To Jobs. The Australian, p. 12.