<p>This doesn’t really have anything to do with colleges but I thought I would defer to your knowledge.</p>
<p>I am interviewing a couple of people about minimum wages and would love to see some of the questions you guys would ask the following people on the topic:</p>
<p>Prominent writer on the topic in the local news
Service station attendant (one of people who will benefit from the implementation)
Security guard (one of the people who will benefit from the implementation)
Government official
Employers of service station attendants and security guards</p>
<p>Background information:
I am writing a 40 page paper on the extent of the effect a minimum wage scheme will have on the employment levels of service station attendants/security guards.</p>
<p>You might also interview an economics professor at a local college and a union official. They will give you a broader perspective, though with their own points of view and potential biases.</p>
<p>Thank you. I already had a union official, which I forgot to mention. I am not sure if my own Economics teacher at school will suffice. What do you think?</p>
<p>I have decided to talk to big firms and small businesses since the income of a security guard probably takes up a larger proportion of the total cost for a small business.</p>
<p>Also, what is the difference between hard and soft benefits? Sorry, we haven’t covered this in my Economics course (haven’t reached Theory of the Firm yet :S).</p>
<p>It’s just terminology used informally. Hard benefits would be things like paid vacation, health insurance, paid sick days, personal days, etc.</p>
<p>While hourly minimum wage earners typically don’t receive those kinds of benefits, raising the minimum wage can affect an employer’s ability to provide those benefits to the next tier of (salaried) employees.</p>
<p>Soft benefits would be things like coffee in the break-room, how often (or even whether) work areas/washrooms are cleaned, and other quality of life on-the-job niceties.</p>
<p>Ah yes, thank you so much! You just reminded me of another thing to talk about - the effect it will have on other employees. If employees below the minimum wage get a wage increase, then, especially in bigger firms, the employees in the tiers above will too want to wage increase because of status issues. It will keep on having a knock on effect so the cost increase for large firms will be much larger than initially expected.</p>
<p>And, if so, it would require the large-firm employer to increase not only the salaries of those next-tier workers, but some of their “hard benefits” as well, since some of those benefits (i.e. employer contributions to retirement plans) will rise as a percentage of salary.</p>
<p>I have worked at several large firms and typically, large corporations do not have anyone (unless it is McDonalds, etc.) making anywhere near minimum wage.</p>
<p>Employees tend to more experiencedand work in the companies main lines of business, with the company outscourcing services that are not core to their business (such as cleaning or security).</p>
<p>That’s not to say that the security firm might not have minimum wage security guards, as could the cleaning firm.</p>
<p>An increase in minimum wages would have a much greater impact on small business, especially retail.</p>
<p>I could ask domestic workers? They are the only people in Hong Kong who have a minimum wage scheme. For them, it is 3500 HKD per month. That is around 1.6USD/hour if they work 9 hours a day and 30 days a month (or 5000USD a year). The thing is, though, many of the domestic workers are still paid below that number.</p>
<p>Maybe I could ask them (provided they are paid above the limit), how it has affected them?</p>
<p>Is this for a class assignment? Ask your professor to guide you toward some background reading. Once you know more about the arguments for and against a minimum wage law, it will be easier to formulate questions that apply to your particular topic.</p>
<p>A hot topic in my home state today is whether workers who routinely get tips should be paid below the minimum wage. Some states ban this practice (7 in total, mine is one of them). You might ask the opinion of business owners AND people who are paid minimum wage and earn tips about this. (I am not sure if service station attendants get tips in your area – most of the US no longer has “service station attendants” due to self serve gas pumps).</p>
<p>I know I was a hotel maid one summer in college, and our management told us to expect tips. But it almost never happened, I got maybe 3 tips the whole summer. Occasionally a guest would leave a box of fudge, as it was a resort area). I am sure that if the company could have gotten away with paying us less and claiming we would make it up on tips, they would have done so.</p>
<p>They provided pros and cons for abolishing the mimimum wage (allowing even lower salaries). </p>
<ol>
<li>Many economists believe the minimum wage law costs the economy thousands of jobs. </li>
<li>Teenagers, workers in training, college students, interns, and part-time workers all have their options and opportunities limited by the minimum wage. </li>
<li>A low-paying job remains an entry point for those with few marketable skills.
Abolishing the minimum wage will allow businesses to achieve greater efficiency and lower prices. </li>
<li>When you force American companies to pay a certain wage, you increase the likelihood that those companies will outsource jobs to foreign workers, where labor is much cheaper. </li>
<li>Non-profit charitable organizations are hurt by the minimum wage. </li>
<li>The minimum wage can drive some small companies out of business. </li>
<li>A minimum wage gives businesses an additional incentive to mechanize duties previously held by humans. </li>
<li>Cost-of-living differences in various areas of the country make a universal minimum wage difficult to set. </li>
<li>Elimination of the minimum wage would mean more citizens and fewer illegals would be hired for low-pay hourly jobs, leading to greater tax revenues and less incentive for illegal immigration. </li>
<li>The minimum wage creates a competitive advantage for foreign companies, providing yet another obstacle in the ability of American companies to compete globally. </li>
<li><p>The minimum wage law is just another example of government condescendingly controlling our actions and destroying personal choice. Citizens do have the ability to say no to a lower wage. </p></li>
<li><p>Adults who currently work for minimum wage are likely to lose jobs to teenagers who will work for much less. </p></li>
<li><p>Workers need a minimum amount of income from their work to survive and pay the bills. </p></li>
<li><p>Without a mimimum wage, businesses have more power to abuse the labor market. </p></li>
<li><p>It forces businesses to share some of the profit with the people that help produce it.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Are you currenty in the US? Most of these ideas are based on the idea that you are, but this comment makes me think that you are not. It makes a big difference. Parents are contributing info about state laws, etc. , if that doesn’t matter - please let us know.</p>
<p>I am in Hong Kong. It is a huge paper so I will have some space to talk about the successes and failures of similar systems in other countries, but it is mainly focused around service station attendants and security guards in Hong Kong, while looking at the bigger picture of welfare vs. unemployment.</p>
<p>When minimum wage was increased, my husband’s uncle immediately got rid of two workers. It was the tipping point for him. He just gave the other workers who averaged 30 hours a week, a few more hours and took the rest himself, thereby saving himself some money. There was no way he was going to take a cut as he felt that he was at the bare bone minimum for his little business.</p>
<p>So, yes, some minimum wage increases are offset by employer action and reaction. I always felt when I worked for very little money, that every change had some element that took the benefit away from me. When the company where I worked was bought by another firm, they swore there would be no changes for a year. Well, we always got a nice Christmas bonus. For that time it was really a nice amount. They just increased everyone’s base pay by that amount. For that year, since it was not a full year under when this occurred, we were cheated, not to mention the Soc security that was taken out of the amount. The taxes, I guess were a wash, but it still left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.</p>
<p>When they raised minimum wage, they just cut down on all the minions’ pay raises so there were just more of us that lower level. Didn’t cost the company much of anything. That I was making a big 50 cents over min wage was a source of pride of sorts, and in one fell swoop I was now in the bottom level of the company getting paid what the non skilled workers were getting. </p>
<p>So I don’t know how much minimum wage helps out things. I remember my nephew working for some very low pay 20 something years ago. Well, there are many folks still working at that low pay level today and here in NY it’s while living in a high cost area. It’s disgraceful, I feel, that things just have not changed that much at all. If you have a job without much in the way of skills required, you get min wage. Even the life guards and other college kids with skills get paid more. My kids get $10.75 and $11.75 an hour because they have the skills. The guy loading boxes with 4 kids still gets minimum wage, and often works 2 or 3 jobs with his wife working as well to make ends meet.</p>