The Case Against the Minimum Wage essays

The Case Against the Minimum Wage essays The issue of government mandated minimum wages did not begin in America. Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and France all had some sort of minimum wage program before it began in the United States with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938 (Nordlund, 1997, pp. xv, and 1). While the FLSA was completely necessary legislation in its day, today, the Federal Minimum Wage, which was a part of the FLSA, is nothing if not controversial. Many experts believe the minimum wage is no longer necessary and even adds to unemployment and poverty. The case against the minimum wage is strong today, for many reasons. One economic expert notes, These [minimum wage] programs are one element in the fabric of the economy that affects the relationship between economic sectors and individual economic participants but whose impacts are large or small, depending on the character of the legislation, the state of the economy, the level of enforcement, and a host of other variables As the writer notes, minimum wage programs are simply one "element in the fabric" of the nation's economy, but to keep the fabric whole, many believe the minimum wage programs must be modified greatly, or erased altogether, because when wages go up, workers lose jobs, and also lose employment opportunities, as other experts note. "A 1998 study by Burkhauser, Couch, and Wittenberg reaffirms earlier findings that raising the minimum wage reduces teenage employment, with a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage leading to employment losses of 1 to 3 percent" (Editors, 1999). Many Americans believe increasing the minimum wage will increase the income of America's lowest paid workers, but this is not always the case. Increasing the minimum wage often causes employers to cut back positions to avoid increased costs, so increasing the minimum wage can actually lead to minimum wage earners l...