Argumentative Essay On Minimum Wage

Words: 1717
Pages: 7

Minimum-wage increases are viewed from many different perspectives. An average worker would may be happy to see their wages increases, while others might be upset that workers with less skill are closing the gap between both sets of wages, and employers will be upset having to pay their workers more. Despite all these opinions, there hasn’t been much consideration of whether or not the use of minimum wage has been useful in terms of fighting off poverty in the United States. When considering its effectiveness to stop poverty, the use of minimum wage laws and its increases is ineffective because it will create inflation in the economy, essentially bringing those in poverty back to poverty.
Originally, the purpose behind minimum wage was to
…show more content…
This statement is true when considering the strengths and weaknesses of minimum wages. Throughout the past, it can be seen that minimum wages have had a temporary effect on increasing job growth. In the article by the National Conference of State Legislatures, they stated the conclusion found by a pair of researchers based on the Bill Clinton minimum wage raise:
Recent studies by economists David Card and Alan Krueger suggest that increases in the minimum wage may not cause reciprocal job loss. In fact, Card and Krueger argue that in several states, higher minimum wages actually resulted in job creation. (Minimum wage debate, 1996, para. 5)
Even though these studies were done in the early to mid 90’s, they can still be used to determine the immediate results of the minimum-wage increase. Based on the mentioned study, it can be ascertained that shortly after the raise there was an increase in job creation and a decrease in poverty. Although, these laws do not do much benefit in the long term. A paper written by Burkhauser, a professor of policy analysis at Cornell University, and Sabia, a professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire, (2007) reviews the studies done by both the economists and found