Should There Be a Minimum Wage?
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Raising the minimum wage would lift the incomes of millions of working families. For those families, it could mean the difference between groceries and the food bank, or between paying rent and being evicted.
Barack Obama made this argument in his 2013 State of the Union address, saying that raising the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour would “raise the incomes of millions of working families.”
Raising the minimum wage would lift the incomes of millions of working families.
A higher minimum wage can lower incomes instead. Employers who can’t afford the higher wage have to let some workers go, and those workers then make less than before ($0), not more.
Employers who can’t afford the higher wage have to let some workers go
Employers could pay for the higher wage by cutting executive pay instead of jobs. Many companies pay their CEOs millions, so the money to pay workers more is there, and laying workers off is a choice, not a necessity.
so the money to pay workers more is there
Even if #6118 were true, it doesn’t address the vast majority of businesses struggling to get by. The owners of mom-and-pop shops don’t make millions. Many businesses in affected industries (retail, restaurants) have razor-thin margins.