Saturday, August 28, 2004

Minimum Wage, Good or Bad?

Alright, here's one to get the ball rolling, so I'll just spit a comment out here. Overtime, I'm sure we're all familiar with the concept. Well, on August 23rd the qualifiers for overtime were changed. Essentially, the overall effect will be to make more employees eligible for overtime pay. But, is this a catch 22? With those that make over $100k a year being exempt from overtime, will the effect be negative with worker productivity going down because there is less of an incentive to climb the corporate ladder?And if employers are forced to pay more overtime, will job growth be stunted? I believe job growth in the areas that are expemt from overtime will slow, but grow in the covered areas grow. In the eyes of an employeer, it might be cheaper to cut the hours of one employee and hire another, therefore not having to pay overtime to either. Or possibly this will force even more jobs overseas.What do you guys think? Make the employee happy or force the employer to make cutbacks in other areas?


*****This is a re-post, set up correctly this time after dabbling in it the first time around*****

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