Position Statement (outline) - Essay Example

Position ment (Outline) Minimum wage should be eliminated because it takes available jobs away from the job-market. Scrapping minimum wage should see an increment of job opportunities, which become available with an increase in the supply of jobs and greater incentives for companies to hire employees instead of mechanizing or outsourcing of jobs. This is an outline paper on the topic “abolition of minimum wage”.Counter-Argument Elimination of minimum wage does have its drawbacks, including loss of jobs for adults, who have to work minimum wage jobs, to teenagers who will take less pay.

Workers also require a minimum wage in order to survive and pay the bills. A single expense such as house rent is capable of taking up almost half of one’s salary. Businesses can also abuse the work-market since minimum wages ensure that businesses give their employees a reasonable sum of money to pay the bills, whether one is skilled or unskilled. Minimum wage, finally, forces businesses to share their vast wealth with the producers of the wealth. Some executives take millions home in bonuses even when a company posts a loss.

Therefore, it is not much to ask that they give the employee at least a guaranteed set pay. However, even with the dangers of scrapping the minimum wage, not eliminating them will lead to more dire consequences as discussed below. 1. Most economists are of the belief that, the law on minimum wage costs, thousands of jobs to the economy (Neumark & William 11). a) Economics’ most fundamental principle is demand and supply and, in the case of labor, supply of workers normally goes up with the appreciation of wages, with the demand for workers going down with an appreciation in wages.

An employer backed, into a corner, to pay a certain amount of money to a janitor by the government might decide not to employ a janitor, instead making the other employees pick up the janitor’s duties. b) Setting a mandatory wage limit causes a disruption of the demand and supply market forces (Neumark & William 13). As the minimum wages rise, the number of people in employment drops and vice versa. It is fundamental to remember that minimum wages will only apply if an individual is employed.c) Many businesses such as automakers have mundane tasks that can be performed by machines.

Forcing them to institute a minimum wage structure will lead to increased mechanization. Spending up-front money for this mechanization seems a fair price to pay compared to paying set wages that exclude the rules supply and demand. 2. Forcing companies to pay a set wage to their employees increases the likelihood of job outsourcing to foreigners who charge cheaper (Levin-Waldman 4). a) Outsourcing of jobs eventually leads to a reduction in the number of jobs accessible to the citizens. An increase in labor costs, say in the United States, will lead to the creation of an added incentive to hire labor from Canada and Mexico. b) Companies facing rising labor costs, further, experience more difficulties through minimum wages.

Since the cost of hiring employees is expected to fall with the elimination of minimum wage, the firms will hire more home-based workers. 3. Elimination of minimum wage leads to fewer illegal immigrants and more citizens being hired for low-cost jobs, which leads to greater revenues for government and decreased incentives for illegal immigrants (Rossana 15).a) Some low-paying jobs, like a gardener or a nanny, are normally given to illegal immigrants instead of paying a citizen the required minimum wage.

These positions have no social security, state, or federal taxes thus overall taxes are reduced. Minimum wage, while a noble idea, has many disadvantages that render its merits to be unsustainable. The most severe is the loss of employment opportunities due to the increased requirement of labor costs, with mechanization, outsourcing and hiring of immigrants among the most common ways of evading minimum wage requirements. Therefore, minimum wage should be eliminated to create more jobs for the citizens.

Works CitedLevin-Waldman, Oren. The case of the minimum wage : competing policy models. Albany : State Univ. of New York Press, 2011. PrintNeumark, David. & William, Wascher. Minimum wages. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. Print Rossana, Robert . Macroeconomics. London: Taylor & Francis, , 2011. Print