Henry
Laks
Dr.
Brown
ENGL
306
May
2, 2016
Anti-Minimum Wage
Protest
Minimum wage is a common topic,
particularly in the groups that are getting paid minimum wage for their jobs. Most people discuss how it should be raised
higher than it is already, and the reason for that is obvious, everyone likes
getting paid more money. However, what
these people don’t realize is minimum wage is not the answer to their problem. Although there are good intentions behind the minimum
wage law, it creates problems, and it only temporarily fixes workers desire for more money. That is why I would like to start a protest that will
increase the awareness of what minimum wage laws are doing to our country and
the economy. I would like to point out the problems that
the minimum wage causes, and what would happen if there wasn’t a law setting a
minimum price for labor. In order to understand the Anti- Minimum wage movement, you will need
to accept the idea that
people are resources in a capitalist economy. Money flows through supply and demand for products, which signals businesses to devote
resources to make products in high demand.
Supply and demand is the determining factor that sets the value of items being created,
and likewise, it determines how much the people making them get for their labor
(Sowell). Minimum wage affects
the market for employees, by artificially
raising the price of labor. Two of the
largest problems minimum wage has created are discrimination and job loss.
In a
competitive market, businesses compete on the standards of price, quantity, and
quality of their products to meet the demands of consumers. In an environment with no minimum wages, businesses
will hire more people with little or no work experience, including minority groups, because the
minimum price is not fixed and adjusts according to each situation. This gives minorities and people who are less
experienced a better chance at getting a job.
The minimum price for their work is completely negotiable, not fixed (Carden). The employers can offer wages that will give
them a superior advantage
over their competitors. For an instance,
someone who just got out of jail could get offered a job at a lower price due to their lack of
work experience and risk of trustworthiness.
The employer could benefit
in this situation, since they would be saving money. Without minimum wage, firms will save money
if they choose to pick employees with less work experience, but in an
environment where labor has a minimum fixed price, the employers will not suffer any additional costs if
they are hiring only more experienced workers. In addition to those problems, minimum wage
increases inflation by increasing the cost of goods
and services.
Businesses, much like individuals have a certain amount of
money, and when the minimum wage increases, their cost of labor increases. Businesses will fire people to make ends meet and keep costs
down, otherwise they will go bankrupt.
When minimum wage is increased businesses scale down on the work force
and try to become more efficient with better paid, more productive workers and
automation. That’s how minimum wage will
take away jobs, and it will force employers to be picky and only choose more experienced workers. Experienced workers get paid more at the societal cost of masses
of unemployed and less experienced workers,
particularly in minority communities.
Here is an example of the economy in both situations, with and without minimum wage. An In and Out owner needs a new worker. The owner gets two applicants and he
interviews each of them. One applicant, Bob,
has had four years’ experience
working at a Smash Burger, and the other applicant, George, has not had any experience making food. In an economy with minimum
wage the owner would probably pick Bob, thinking that Bob would be much
more productive since
he has more experience
and he costs the same as George. In an economy without minimum wage, the owner
has the option to offer George a lower rate until he gains some experience at the job and
is capable of higher productivity. Also he
still has the option of hiring Bob and paying a higher wage right off the bat. The owner now has an option to save some money
by hiring George, or pay more for Bob.
In that scenario, a more inexperienced worker has a better chance of getting a job.
In order to fix the problems caused by minimum wage, I would
organize a protest with the first stage of the protest being classified as the “Inception”
of the Anti-Minimum Wage protest, “A preexisting sentiment, nourished by interested rhetoricians, begins
to flower into public
notice,” (Griffin). The purpose of this phase would be to make the
public aware of the problems that the minimum wage is causing. I know many people would perceive minimum wage
negatively if they knew its effects. Just
like so many other protests, the Anti-Minimum Wage movement would need a
following to become prominent.
I think one of the best ways to reach prominence is by taking
advantage of the “public screen” (Deluca and Peeples) largely through social
media. Social media is where a majority
of the population spends long amounts of time. Therefore, it is a great way to make
information on the cons of minimum wage accessible to a large amounts of people. Using social media is much more effective
than other methods of disseminating information, because it can reach large
amounts of people in a short amount of time. Platforms such as Facebook are great for sharing information, because
it is a place where people can express their opinions after reading a post, ask
questions, and discuss the subject. This
atmosphere for presenting
the protest would be much less overbearing
than other methods of sharing information on a topic. Also getting a news network to report on the
idea, of eliminating the
minimum wage to help create more jobs, could really speedup the process of
spreading the protest.
Supposing enough people are convinced that minimum wage
should be eliminated, the second stage of this protest would be “Rhetorical
Crisis” (Griffin). Which is when the two
sides Anti-Minimum Wage vs. Pro-Minimum Wage collide. The collision would create a permanent
separation between the two groups in which they would both get into an
aggressive argument. As long as this
argument is big and serious enough, it would get the government’s
attention. The people in office could
actually change minimum wage laws through the legislative process.
The timing of this protest would be key, an appeal for new
legislation repealing the Fair Wages Act would require either a lot of conservatives
or convincing enough liberals to change their views on minimum wage. Liberals generally like to regulate the economy to help
it along, rather than let it do what it will on its own. Conservatives on the other hand are much more
supportive of letting
the economy adjust prices on its own through supply and demand. Picking a strategic time to start this protest so that it
gets before the government when there are more conservatives than liberals
would highly increase the chance of getting new legislation passed. Successful completion of this protest would
fulfill the last stage of the protest “Consummation” (Griffin). In this stage a law would pass that would actually
remove the minimum wage. Although the effect of the law would not be instant,
it would eventually restore
the damage done to our economy through the minimum wage.
Conclusion Purpose:
I used the final stage of protest as the subject of my conclusion to
create a nice ending that
did not summarize my paper. Normally, I
would have quickly summarized what I wrote. I think this concludes my paper well because
it ends on the idea that my protest was won, which is what any protestor would
want.
Paragraph Structure:
My paragraph is
the fourth one.
1.
The purpose of this paragraph is to give an
example of two different economies, one with and one without minimum wage.
2.
The main characters are experience, economy, and
minimum wage.
3.
I think it’s a chained topic string.
Cited Sources
Cardin, Art. “The Minimum Wage, Discrimination,
and Inequality.” Mises Institute, Mises Institute, 1 January 2009, Web.
< https://mises.org/library/minimum-wage-discrimination-and-inequality>
DeLuca, Kevin and Peeples, Jennifer.
"From Public Sphere to Public Screen: Democracy, Activism, and the
"Violence" of Seattle." Readings
on the Rhetoric of Social Protest, Browne, Stephen and Morris III, Charles,
eds. State College, Pa: Strata Publishing, Inc., 2013
Griffin, Leland. "The Rhetoric of
Historical Movements." Readings in the Rhetoric of Social Protest,
Browne, Stephen Howard, and Charles E. Morris III, Strata Publishing, Inc., 2013,
page 11.
Sowell,
Thomas. Basic Economics: a common sense guide to the economy.
Safari Books Online, 4th edition, Basic Books, 2011.
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