Monday, February 12, 2007

Minimum Wage Increase Hurts

The state of Ohio has just passed its law regarding the increase of minimum wage, but for New York minimum wage increase is still an ongoing debate. Everyone likes the idea of putting more money in their pockets, but raising minimum wage may effect low-skilled workers. Research done by Michigan State University states that with minimum wage increase encourages more teens to drop out of high school and enter the workforce replacing lower-skilled workers. Jobs will not be available to lower-skilled workers if the price of labor is higher than its real value.
There is also an impact on small businesses with increasing the minimum wage. Obviously small businesses will have more expenses in paying employees, but also with costs of workers compensation insurance, umemployment insurance, Social Security, etc. Small businesses will have to either lay off workers, increase prices, or both because they simply don't have extra money lying around to pay for these expenses.
To increase or not to increase the minimum wage, that is the question.

1 comment:

Greg Delemeester said...

Another minimum wage post? This is the fourth or fifth post in less than two weeks. Please try to post on a topic that has not already been blogged on.