Talk:Minimum wage

I'd like historical information here as well as current minimum wages. Here's the data I collected a while ago, if someone wants to insert it somewhere:

U.S. Federal Minimum Wage

01/01/81 $3.35
04/01/90 $3.80
04/01/91 $4.25
10/01/96 $4.75
09/01/97 $5.15

Some links:

http://www.boli.state.or.us/technical/min-wage.html - link of above facts
http://www.fedminwage.com/

--Tomruen 08:21, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments for/against a Minimum Wage increase:

For:

It helps people that make the least money. -- How ?
It helps union workers because many union contracts are based on a fixed percentage/dollar amount over minimum wage. Indirectly helps union funds used for to pay union officials, retirement plans, and for lobbying political issues (such as an increase in the minimum wage) because union dues are a percentage of the hourly wage.

Against:

It increases the cost of basic goods and services in proportion to the increase in labor costs from an increase in the minimum wage. It is claimed to offset any increase minimum wage workers receive.
Minimum wage workers usually earn minimum wage only for a short period of time and move to higher paying jobs.
Many minimum wage jobs are performed by part time workers and students.
It harms the people who make the least money -- a minimum wage law doesn't create any jobs, it simply outlaws some jobs (those which create little value).

There have to be some real reasons to be for or against an increase in the minimum wage. Not some generic 'it helps the little guy' or some generic 'it costs jobs'

Can anyone list all off the things that are directly tied to the minimum wage level?

Social Security taxes paid (6.25 percent paid by wage earner and 6.25 percent paid by employer)
Medicare taxes paid (1.2 percent paid by wage earner and 1.2 percent paid by employer)
Union contracts based on a fixed percentage/dollar amount over minimum wage
Unemployment taxes ??
Worker's compensation insurance ??

Basically, the economic effects very much depend on the relevent supply and demand curves and monopoly or monopsony effects. Ignoring monopoly and monopsony effects, an increase in minimum wage will increase the amount of the wage (duh) and decrease the amount of labor demanded. This will result in a surplus of labor and cause a dead weight loss. On the other hand, if the employer is a monopsony in the labor market, (or at least has significant monopsony power), then sometimes both the wage and the amount of labor hired will increase. If the sellers of labor have a monopoly (i.e. maybe there is a strong union) then they may demand some kind of increased wage and this will increase the amount of money that the members take home, even if somewhat less labor is employed.

Clearly, there is some informed discussion guiding the creation of this article. However, the poor grammar in the Further economic issues section in the version of 29 October 2003 makes it unintelligible. The article needs a rewrite so that the rest of us can understand it. Rossami 02:10, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Card-Krueger Experiments

I just made some major revisions to the part of the article that deals with the Card-Krueger experiments, as it made no mention of the serious objections made to their methodology and conclusions.

I was wondering if it might ultimately be better to put everything regarding C-K in a new section or perhaps an entirely separate article.

Kurt Weber 23:04, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would like it if you made it into a seperate article. I noticed you took more care to NPOV the pro C-K paragraphs than the con C-K paragraphs. --LegCircus 23:10, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)