Increase in Min Wage

[march1971]

What do you think of the proposal to increase the minimum wage that the President announced in his State of the Union?

I personally think this is a very wrong move to make, esp. in the current economic climate that we are in. Looking at it from the PoV of a business, a company isn't going to just roll over and fork out the additional cost to pay their workers. Either a company will shift those costs to the consumer thereby increasing prices which in turn raises inflation which hurts people on lower wages and / or fixed incomes. Or a company will not be able to afford as many workers which will lead to unemployment. In either case, the people that this wage increase is supposed to help are actually the ones hurt in the process.

And for small businesses, this could be this kiss of death for them. If one of these companies cannot afford the increase and cannot lose customers by increasing prices, their only recourse would be to hire less staff. And if they don't have enough employees to cover all of their obligations, they may just have to close up completely.

I just think that this is one of those policies that looks good at first, but when you examine all of the ramifications, it is actually more harmful to the already fragile economy.

from what I have heard, President Obama is looking to increase minimum wage to $9 per hour. maybe the restaurant waitresses here in America should go from 2.13 per hour to 3.35 per hour, and maybe the restaurants themselves should go up to $9 per hour. most of the factories around Warsaw pay $20 per hour. this is the orthopaedic industries here in Warsaw, IN. the orthopaedic industry is the backbone of Warsaw, IN, and Obamacare is going to take effect in 2 years. what do you think is going to happen to this town after that?

[hawkeye3210]

Yeah and an increase may just put you into the next tax bracket too. I had that happen to me. I got a dollar raise and taxes went up and i actully lost money.

That's not even possible.

[cowgirl2116]

There are some positives and some negatives to increasing the minimum wage.  On the down side or negative side, increasing minimum wage also increases the price of other things.

[sigmapi1501]

Yeah and an increase may just put you into the next tax bracket too. I had that happen to me. I got a dollar raise and taxes went up and i actully lost money.

That's not even possible.

But he said it happened

[pwhittle1]

I think the minimum wage should be raised every year similar to how the Social Security raises their benefits for those people. Everything has gotten so much out of hand, prices go up but not the wages that doesn't make any sense.
If they learn to do the right thing which they don't want to do, we wouldn't have all of these problems. Freeze those prices food, utilities, gas, etc... Bring those wages up so they can do away with the majority of Snap Benefits. The government wants to keep the majority of Americans in the low income range. 

[gennjen]

GREA FOR EMPLOYEES BAD FOR EMLOYERS!

[Sciolaro]

The increase in the cost of living is a consequence of irresponsible Federal Reserve behavior.