<p>I just went to a micro economics lecture and the professor said that the minimum wage is causing a shortage of workers that firms want to hire. This indirectly leads to higher unemployment rates. The only people that benefit are the people who work at the minimum wage. But many people can't get jobs in the first place because of the oversupply of workers. Unemployment creates a loss in the potential output of the economy so I think that the U.S. government should abolish the minimum wage.</p>
<p>so are you saying that people will be better off beign paid less than the minimum wage? Um... I don't know where this idea came from, but the minimum wage is there to protect the working people from exploitation from their employers. Oh by the way, our unemployment rate is around 3 or 4 percent.</p>
<p>If we get rid of minimum wage, then we are saying...."Employers, go ahead and pay us as little as you possibly can, we don't care"</p>
<p>NOT a good idea.</p>
<p>Agree, the minwage only serves to increase inflation, unemployment, or both. MinWage workers DO NOT benefit from it existing. If Milk Company Z must pay its workers $20.50 an hour... great. Unfortunately, Milk Company Z is going to hire less and raise the price of milk so that the poor people working for MinWage are still going to have to pay $11 for a gallon of milk.</p>
<p>rExRuN467 the minimum wage hurts both the working people and the employers by creating chronic unemployment. The 3 to 4 percent umeployment your are talking about people who are actively changing jobs or seeking new jobs. It does not include 10 to 20+ percent of people who gave up finding jobs because of the lack of job openings, which resulted from the minimum wage.</p>
<p>NoobTakular,
are you saying we should give up quality life for the economy? I understand it hurts the working people and employers, however, how bout those who are hired. If the employer now says," alright people, now I am gonna hire people for a buck an hour...so everyone who makes more than that, go away and get another job."
Cmon..why do you think american companies are expanding their companies overseas into China, India, etc. It is because there is such a cheap labor and they can pay as little as possible for the goods. However, lets look at the workers. They live Shtty lives. If you want America to lose minimum wage, the only thing that serves to protect the working class from being exploited, then we will become a nation of sweatshops and people living in slums.
P.S: America by the way isnt the cheapest place to live in the world. If we lose minimum wage, people will become homeless and become so depended on the government, all our tax money will be there paying for their neccessities, which in turn, will lower our spending for money, research, THE WAR, etc,</p>
<p>There is no minimum wage here in the UAE and you'd be shocked by the kind of conditions a lot people work under for almost nothing. Most of the workers are poor people from south asia that come to the UAE expecting good jobs and working conditions, but they're only exploited by their employers because they simply have no other choice. They have to accept it or else starve. A lot of them go for months without getting paid, or have to work in the desert sun for hours at a time without any breaks. They're treated really horribly. The only people that benefit from the absence of a minimum wage are the wealthy.</p>
<p>If the employer did that then he will not find any employees and would go out of business. Sending jobs overseas happens because employees could not find people in U.S. to work for them for slightly lower salaries. While foreign labor is cheaper it is less productive. If the wages of U.S. workers were slightly less employers would lose the benefit from offshoring and stop doing it. The minimum wage does not really protect the working class, it hurts them by making it impossible for them to get jobs. And the unemployment creates the homeless. If the homeless had jobs, even really cheap jobs, then they could afford food and some place to live in. Also, the minimum wage inflates currency and greatly increases the cost of living. People are dependent on the government because of the minimum wage, duh, if government stop interfering then they will get jobs and stop being dependent on government. Did you know how much money government is spending right now on unemployment pay, welfare, ect?</p>
<p>Wesam88-
This is from UAE wikipedia article.
"The UAE's wealth is largely based on oil and gas output, some 33% of GDP. It is the third largest oil producer in the Persian Gulf after Saudi Arabia and Iran (Iraq's oil output has fluctuated due to war). Since 1973, the UAE has undergone a profound transformation from an impoverished region of small desert principalities to a modern state with a high standard of living. The country's per capita GDP is not far below the GDPs of the leading West European nations. Its generosity with oil revenues and its moderate foreign policy stance have allowed it to play a vital role in the affairs of the region. In recent years the government has sought to diversify its sources of income and lessen its dependence on finite oil reserves. One result of these efforts is a steadily developing tourism industry, centered on coastal, desert and sporting resorts and infrastructure. The success of these ventures, along with other factors like the relatively low price of commodities, the warm temperatures that prevail for most of the year, the engineering marvels such as Burj Al Arab and The Palm Islands, and friendliness to the West have led many to call it the Hong Kong of the Middle East."
Here are the problems with UAE employment:
"It is common practice for employers to retain employees' passports for the duration of the employment contract to prevent expatriate employees from changing jobs. This is an illegal practice, but it is almost never investigated, let alone punished by the government. On termination of an employment contract, certain categories of expatriates are banned from obtaining a work permit in the country for six months.
The United States Department of State has cited widespread instances of blue collar labor abuse in the general context of the United Arab Emirates [1].
The government has been criticized by human rights agencies such as Human Rights Watch for its inaction in addressing the discrimination against Asian workers in the emirate. Salary structures based on nationality, sex, age, and race rather than on qualification are common"
Did you notice the the minimum wage was not mentioned? The problem deals not with wage but with illigal discriminatory employment policies.</p>
<p>NoobTakular,
basically... if you read all my post on this thread, my whole point is that the rich is benefiting. The lower classes will struggle even to survive. They will have jobs, no problem, because of the workers the employers would seek with the extra cash, however, poverty will reach an all time high for US if minimum wage is destroyed</p>
<p>Just because it's not mentioned in Wikipedia doesn't mean it's not true. I live in the UAE and I see these people everyday, and there have been a lot of articles in local newspapers about the problem lately.</p>
<p><a href="http://guide.theemiratesnetwork.com/living/employment.php%5B/url%5D">http://guide.theemiratesnetwork.com/living/employment.php</a>
<a href="http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/05/10/08/185641.html%5B/url%5D">http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/05/10/08/185641.html</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
There is no such thing as minimum wage, and because of this, there are people working 8 to 12 hours a day for Dhs. 30 (US$ 8)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>8 dollars for a full day of work?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mideasti.org/countries/countries.php?name=uae%5B/url%5D">http://www.mideasti.org/countries/countries.php?name=uae</a>
Economy
Currency: Emirati dirham (AED)
GDP: $63.67 billion
Per Capita GDP: $25,200
GDP Annual Growth Rate: 5.7%
Inflation Rate: 3.2%
Unemployment Rate: 2.4%</p>
<p>I would say that these economic conditions are pretty good.</p>
<p>Minimum wage can be a huge problem when it is set too high, which it almost always is, or at least intended to by its creators. It destroys competition within the labor market, workers are guaranteed to be paid a certain rate regardless of their performance or abilities: there is no incentive for innovation. It also will affect workers. If the minimum wage is too high, the supply of labor will be much greater than the deman of labor from the firms. There should be some kind of worker's protection, but minimum wage and all these other concoction of labor unions and socialists in the long run hurt the economy. They effect both employees and employers. A minimum wage doesn't help anyone if firms are not employing people because its too expensive: now they'll just outsource or offshort the work. Any kind of collective bargaining doesn't really do anyone good. It will only hurt in the long run, when competition is lost or compromised. </p>
<p>If there is no minimum wage the equilibrium rate will be set by the market. This is ideal. When you have governments interfering you are distorting market forces and making it worse for everyone. High minimum wage and collective bargaining raises prices for consumers, firms who have to pay employees more than the market says they should will have to recoup those costs somewhere. They will get the consumers with them. Or hire less workes or innovate less. But most likely they will move jobs to cheaper countries and that's bad for everyone involved. </p>
<p>The only jobs that are really affected by minimum wage are often secondary sector jobs or low wage low prestige tertiary sector jobs. Jobs that will eventually be lost anyway and moved. Instead of moaning about minimum wage we should be training and re-educating people to do new more specialized jobs.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I just went to a micro economics lecture and the professor said that the minimum wage is causing a shortage of workers that firms want to hire.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah....this sounds like a plea that has a practical solution less drastic than doing away with minimum wage. Lower the amount of money being paid to the "big dog" CEO's et al. and share some of their stack with "the shortage of workers that firms want to hire." </p>
<p>Your logic in this statement shouts: "Let us put slaves back to work...pay them a dog's wage, and work them all day while we stay/get richer than ever before."</p>
<p>311Griff: The board has no reason to lower the money being paid to the CEOs, and the government has no moral right to force them to.</p>
<p>hahaha looks like someone needs to go back to school. CEO's are paid lots of money because they provide a huge benefit to society by their services. If their wages are limited than fewer people will want to be and become ceos thereby making the society miss out on the benefit that could have been provided by the ceo's.</p>
<p>Uh... well then maybe people should not be so greedy?</p>
<p>I think a CEO can afford to live on less than a million dollars per year. Right now, they get paid 10, 20, sometimes 30 times that much. CEOs don't need that money. I don't think a CEO should complain that they "only make 1 million a year". Let's face it, 90% of the money that goes into the executives' salaries could go to keep the company from cutting jobs and going bankrupt. That doesn't benefit society, does it?</p>
<p>
[quote]
hahaha looks like someone needs to go back to school. CEO's are paid lots of money because they provide a huge benefit to society by their services.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Where did you get this nonsense? Prove your statement. Show me where a CEO's compensation is 100% justified by his/her work. CEO's are paid a lot of money because they are good politicians, and leaders... not because they are out saving the world. </p>
<p>
[quote]
311Griff: The board has no reason to lower the money being paid to the CEOs,
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unless the CEO is not improving shareholder value, their only responsibility.</p>
<p>The problem is that lower ceo wage would result in fewer people wanting to be ceo's and the quality of ceo's would be greatly reduced. This in turn would reduce the performance of corporations because of bad leadership and decision making. So to attract the best candidates, companies would just start using illigal tactics by increasing their compensation indirectly.</p>
<p>The benefit an individual person gives to society is the amount of money the society is willing to trade for the person's services.</p>
<p>Can someone tell me how to do that quote thing.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The benefit an individual person gives to society is the amount of money the society is willing to trade for the person's services.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I disagree, I don't think that the "benefit" (defined:To be helpful or useful to.) a person "gives" to society is the amount of money given to that person. I think a school teacher is far more "benefit"ing to society than what society is willing to pay them.</p>
<p>(BTW, to quote like above, use the tag "[ quote]" then insert quote text, then tag "[/ quote]" without the spaces and quotation marks.)</p>
<p>School teachers are not paid much because there are too many of them and they are not very specialized. A teacher who teaches 50 students is much more beneficial to society than a teacher that co-teaches with anouther teacher a group of 50 students. The pay of the teacher that teaches 50 students by himself will be much greater. Having 2 people teach the same material is not a beneficial to society as having 2 people teach complectely different stuff. If everyone teaches the same stuff the society will not benefit much and the teachers would be poorly compensated. This is the case in the U.S. where millions of teachers have very similar knowledge and are easily replaceble. The school system would hire the cheapest teachers because of the great selection. So, a high school math teacher is less beneficial to society than a university advanced calculus 2 professor and therefore the professor will be paid more than the school teacher. This is the law of supply and demand. The higher quantity of school teachers will earn much less than the lower quantity of specialized professors.</p>