Minimum Wage
Many issues receive attention. I haven't heard much on minimum wage and I believe this is something to take interest in. Certainly, I agree that we should raise it. If someone disagrees, please explain because this seems to be a beneficial thing.
Kerry says the Republican House won't host this or I am guessing won't allow this to be brought up during any of the meetings. The raise would greatly benefit single women. I am without a defense for Bush. I read in the paper today something about Bush pushing a corporate tax cut. I feel like this is the last thing he should do. It seems like he rewards corporations. He is so closely related with so many large corporations that he has to look out for his "buddies". If we want someone whose going to value families, I think Kerry wins. I think Kerry will do a better job in this area.
posted by Kevin @ 10/13/2004 10:21:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I think corporate tax cuts can be explained with simple economics. Corporations receive tax cuts and then increase their budgets. That increases spending, increasing GDP. So the equation goes, better economy = higher GDP. Businesses can spend more money than consumers can and may respond quicker to said tax cuts.
However, I do think that raising the minimum wage should be addressed immediatly. I found a petition here.
Like I said in another post, I was an econ major in college so maybe someone who has studied this stuff can enlighten.
Why the minimum wage is a bad idea:
Simply put, the minimum wage is what is called a price floor (scroll to bottom). Here's a good illustration of the effects of the minimum wage on the labor market.
The question now is, is our current minimum wage higher or lower than the fair market minimum wage? I say it is obviously higher than the fair market value (FMV), because if it were not, no one would be getting paid at the minumum wage (markets always move toward the equilibrium price where supply = demand).
So if it is higher than the FMV of labor, then what we now have is a supply of workers (Qs, quantity supplied) greater than the market demand for workers (Qd, quantity demanded). If you increase it further, the Qs will increase and Qd will decrease thus creating more unemployment for our lowest paid workers. That's not a good thing.
We can't ignore economics for political purposes. When the government gets involved and tips the balance and knocks the markets off of their equilibrium price, it WILL have a negative impact.
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