Monday, December 02, 2013

Extra Credit Post- Week of 12/2

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/opinion/krugman-better-pay-now.html?src=mv

15 comments:

  1. I think that increaasing minimum wage could benefit a lot of peoples lives. People would be much more able to support their families. But when you think about it, how many college graduates are only making maybe $20 and hour if theyre lucky? And that's after at least 4 years of schooling to prepare them for that job. The jobs that pay minimum wage, are jobs that require minimum effort. I work at walgreens and make minimum wage. I think that $8.50 an hour is more than enough to pay me for standing checking people out for a few hours. I don't think its completely fair to say that retail workers deserve close to the same amount of pay as someone who has been trained in college for at least 4 years.

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  2. While I do agree with raising the minimum wage to around $10, you need to take into account the repercussions that will ripple through the new job environment. To compensate for the loss in profit, companies will demand more from their employees, raise prices on goods, and may resort to illegal actions, such as not following certain regulations or health codes. Aside from all of that, some jobs don't deserve that amount of money. Many jobs are relatively easy (as I am told), such as a cashier at McDonalds; this job doesn't require an education, experience, or really any other prerequisites and is therefore a low paying position as it should be. Raising the minimum wage is definitely necessary but certain effects due to these changes need to be discussed, with the pros and cons weighed against each other.

    Jared Carlson
    Period: 2

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  3. Raising minimum wage will be a good thing for this country. In Norway the minimum wage is 26 dollars if you have no experience and no college eduaction. As a fact if you do have college eduaction minimum wage is 29 dollars. I know for a fact that this will work, becuase there is not much poverty in Norway at all. Of course there are other reasons, but minimum wage probably is one of the main reasons. If we question this; where are we going to get that money from? You are going to get a lot of different answers. I am not saying Norway is very much better than America, but raising your taxes in general might not be a bad idea. The richest could have a tax around 40% of their income, which might ound like a lot, however if you are earning 100 million dollars a year. 60 million dollars is still a pretty good deal. This is a question you can discuss, but I know for a fact that the economy in Norway is really good, so I think we should definetly raise the minimum wage

    Christian F.
    period 6

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  4. I agree with the articles proposition to raise minimum wage. Because of inflation rates, the minimum wage is no longer worth the same amount which makes it difficult to live on. Although these jobs do not require much skill, we need to supply American workers with jobs they live a healthy lifestyle on. Furthermore, the article states that raising minimum wage has a positive effect saying, "hiking the minimum wage has little or no adverse effect on employment, while significantly increasing workers’ earnings." (Better Pay Now) Raising minimum wage is a much needed and significant step in helping end poverty.

    Eleanor Hall
    Period 3

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  5. Caroline M. 2
    Raising the minimum wage would raise the incomes of 28 million Americans. Women would particularly benefit because they tend to work for lower wages than men. Raising the minimum wage is family friendly policy: To get the economy back on track, spending power has to be in the hands of those who actually spend in the real economy. That means regular people, not the super-wealthy who tend to hoard wealth or invest in financial products. The problem with our economy today is that the growing gap between the real wages and productivity has violated the traditional relationship between real wages and consumption. So if the productivity of each worker is rising strongly, yet that worker’s capacity to purchase (the real wage) is lagging badly behind.

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  6. Raising the minimum wage is a very effective way to help our economy, and also the people the author continuously refers to as "the ones behind the counter." Although I think the author is limiting who is effected by poor minimum wages, the idea that the people helping us on a day to day basis are the ones who get the least amount of money is true. It's more than the economy, it's giving these people money to actually be able to live off of, money that will suffice. However, I can clearly see the opposing side, and the fact that these are low paying jobs for a reason. Most require no education or experience, and if the pay for these people rise, that means everything else that touches these peoples jobs will be effected as well; the price of the food or clothing they sell, the profit the company they work for makes, and so forth. Is it worth it? I don't have an exact answer and I'm not sure I have an exact opinion either, but I know that it would be nice to find a place where we can give these people enough money to live off of, while not giving them more money than their job position deserves.

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  7. Michael Caminear Period 6
    I completely agree with the intentions of this article and propositions it is putting forth. Sure, everybody wants to earn more money and everyone wants people to be nutritionally insured with the expansion of food stamps. However, given the current economic state that America is currently in, I think it would be fiscally impossible to impose such radical increases in the minimum wage. I think this because employers are struggling, as it is, to pay their employees the current minimum wage. Therefore, if the minimum wage were increased further, then employers would have to let their employees go due to drastic currency inflation. This would then lead to more unemployment, more people on welfare, and more people on food stamps. So, enacting a higher minimum wage at this time would not be a good idea simply because of the fact that it would be detrimental to small businesses and have a sort of a negative snowball effect on the overall national economy. On the contrary, I think that if our nation's economy is improved, then increasing the minimum wage would be a good idea because of the futuristic benefits that it could have; but as of right now, the economic backlash would be too great to put firth a higher national minimum wage.

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  8. I completely agree with what this article is saying. Our workers are suffering poverty and aren't able to pay for food without government subsidies, and most aren't able to get any type of healthcare; however, an increasing minimum wage would cause lots of drastic changes. America hasn't been relieved of its 16.9 trillion dollar debt which is yet still increasing, and increasing the minimum wage would add a major dent into our debt which could lead to inflation and add more money we still yet have to owe money. We can't risk losing our economy even more at this time, thus now isn't the time to increase our minimum wage. With hopefully another decade or two after we steer clear of this massive economic debt and unemployment decreases maybe then we can provide more to minimum wage, but as of right now, it would just cause more harm than good. Right now American poor can make it by, but if we caused this havoc of the economy, this dent could make the unemployment rate as high as the Great Depression and thus it would increase of current 46.5 million people in poverty to almost 50 million. This is why I believe slowly as we progress our economy into a better safer state, we can start to amend our minimum wage, but for now it is far too dangerous and risky to provide an adequate pool of positive results.
    Miranda S Period 6

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  9. Most citizens in US struggle to make a living with the minimum wage. The difficulty they face while supporting their family leaves them with little or no saving. No future plans. As one of the commenter said, how can poor American make America rich? I completely agree with him. I don’t know much about economy but increasing of the minimum wage seems to have no or very small side effect. Krugman discovered “… a lot of evidence on what happens when you raise the minimum wage … is overwhelmingly positive: hiking the minimum wage has little or no adverse effect on employment, while significantly increasing workers’ earnings.” If taking this step can benefit most American then why hold it back. I can understand that this plan might not come out positive towards the rich people or people in higher post - who have higher income- but they would not hurt from it.

    When I went through the comments, I found an interesting comment by TKList: “You have to tailor your living around your wage, not have the government tailor your wage around your living.” The comment seems to by a person who gets paid higher than the minimum wage. But still, when I try to understand their view, it just doesn’t make sense. I mean everything is so expensive nowadays. With such low minimum wage supporting yourself or family is extremely difficult. However, they have managed to survive till this point with such little wage and as everyone else they deserve to live a better life. When the citizen can’t help themselves, it’s their right to ask for government assistance. The government should interfere by raising the minimum wage. But the minimum wage should rise over time not rapidly. This will allow all the citizens and the government to adjust slowly with time.
    ~Shilpa R Period 3

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    Replies
    1. Shilpa brings up 2 extremely good points- one being the view of minimum wage workers who are for the raise versus the view of workers who get paid above the minimum wage and are generally opposed to the raise. That disgusts me. She also made another good point by saying that the wage should be increased overtime, for a sudden increase would destroy businesses, which would by no means be any better for the economy.
      Megan Glynn Period 3

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  10. Raising the minimum wage would definitely work, and it baffles my mind as to why we are all still discussing raising it. If all evidence points to good outcomes when raising the minimum wage, then what are we waiting for? We are waiting only because the people who give it the final go are the ones who will potentially lose some of their income (of millions) by this. To me, it is disgusting that I have to run around all day at work 6 times a week for 3 hours a day and only get paid $7 an hour. Not to sound conceited, but I'm on my feet the whole time, running around and getting things done, and therefore I should earn a little more than what I am now for it merits the raise. I would clearly benefit from the raise as well, as I am a 16 year old and teenagers make up 59.1 percent of all minimum wage workers. This money I am receiving goes immediately toward my college fund, therefore helping me in the long run too. I truly do hope that the minimum wage is raised and that the final decision to do so will be soon.
    Megan Glynn Period 3

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  11. Leah Braley, Period 6
    I think that this article gave an interesting view on the argument for minimum wage, and it made me think about where I stand with this issue. I do agree that it would be good to raise minimum wage, simply because for the hours many of them work and for the expenses of living today, they deserve more than what they probably get. But what I've thought is that if we raise minimum wage too much, won't that just result in higher overall prices of things so in the end it would just be redundant? But this article also points out that raising minimum wage could have a sort of domino affect in how it could slightly benefit, fast food place managers for example could be payed a little more. This article has made me possibly rethink my stance on this issue, I think that now I could say if it doesn't overall have negative effects for the economy and our prices then it could be an idea worth considering.

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  12. I think that raising the minimum wage is only a small part of helping our economy. The article says that there will be no economic backlash, but I do think that companies may have to let some of their workers go due to a drastic increase. Therefore, I don't think that just raising the minimum wage to $10 would help the economy. It would be beneficial to those that could keep their jobs, but some workers that are fired and some small businesses may be hurt. Therefore, I think that we should increase the minimum wage less drastically, perhaps not reaching $10 for another 5 years. However, other programs must be paired with this increase, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which benefits the poor. We should also work on making sure that all Americans have access to health care. I realize that these programs will all cost money, while our nation is in a state of debt. There have been multiple answers proposed to answer this question. We can raise taxes, using a progressive income tax to not take too much money away from the lower class. However, this sparks a lot of debate, so it would cause major problems in Congress. Therefore, I thin k that the first step that needs to be taken is a small increase in the minimum wage, and then we'll go on from there.
    Jessica L. Period 6

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  13. i would say that i'm not vulnerable because im a type of person who is very guarded and very strong. To me vulnerablity is people who let people come in there lifes and allow them selfs to get hurt and i can't go through that anymore, it's already happen once with my step father and i will never let it happen again. Im not saying that being vulnerable is bad, because it's good to let people come in your lifes sometimes. It's just something im not though.

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