A popular sentiment that liberals have toward the minimum wage is that it would be better for everyone if it was raised to $10, $11, or even $15 per hour.
On the surface, this argument seems somewhat valid. Hard-working, low-income Americans should get the pay they deserve. Yet in reality, raising the minimum wage hurts the very people that it is aiming to help, along with young people altogether.
Looking at the available statistics, then connecting the dots, shows that raising the minimum wage will not benefit many people at all.
Right away, if lawmakers were to raise the minimum wage to $10.10, let alone $15, the Congressional Budget Office says there would be about 500,000 jobs lost. Furthermore, 38 percent of businesses say that they would have to lay off workers, while 54 percent of businesses say that they would decrease hiring rates.
All of this goes to show that raising the minimum wage could potentially hurt the workers who are currently employed. It also shows it would bar the next generation of Americans from entering the workforce. It would become harder for those struggling to get jobs, and it would be harder for young Americans to get their foot in the door, finding some type of first-time work experience.
Focusing on the next generation of working Americans is an important one, especially when discussing whether to raise the minimum wage.
More than 700,000 people were working for the federal minimum wage in 2016, and only 2 percent of those people were above the age of 25. This tells us that most people working a minimum wage job are people trying to enter the workforce.
While statistics tell us that this is the case, some on the Left try to say that raising the minimum wage is of the utmost importance, not because people younger than 25 need the money, but rather, because older Americans need it to support their families. In reality, those are not the people who would be receiving the supposed benefit of a raised wage. The Left continues to talk about raising the wage in terms of older Americans despite the facts that have been laid out on the table.
Now that it is apparent that raising the minimum wage through unneeded, harmful government regulation is not the answer to raising wages, what is?
The answer is simple, and it has been implemented recently through the GOP tax bill. The answer is cutting taxes for business, which incentivizes raising wages. Instead of the government forcing businesses into a corner with a decision to either lay off workers, raise prices on their product, or decreasing hiring rates, tax cuts provide employers with more money to raise the wage naturally. This allows for young Americans to join the workforce as more job openings are created.
Some may say that businesses will be greedy with their tax breaks, and not raise wages, yet after the GOP tax bill was passed last year, a multitude of businesses either raised wages or gave out bonuses to their workers. Despite this major victory for the American worker, there is still a hard push from those on the Left to force businesses to raise their wages, rather than incentivize them to do so.
The minimum wage argument is one that looks so obvious on the outside, but once you dig a little deeper, the statistics tell a different story. Statistics show that people will lose their jobs, young people will have a harder time getting hired in the first place, and businesses will be kept from flourishing just because of government intervention. The best way to authentically raise wages is by giving tax breaks to businesses. This has been proven both in theory, and in practice.
