Minimum Wage Should It stay or should it Go
By Chris Hamilton
Specific Purpose Statement: To invite my audience to think about the various perspectives of minimum wage, these perspectives being why minimum wage is enforced, those who believe that it should be increased, and those that believe it should remain where it is.
Thesis: As talks about raising minimum wage is flourishing I would like to discuss the various perspectives that pertain to possible changes of minimum wage and potential changes that could come.
Introduction
I. [Attention Getter]: How many of you guys have been paid minimum wage at some point in your life?
II. [Reveal topic and relate to audience]: With this topic beginning to gain attraction, and us being the age of adults who will be voting and working we could benefit from seeing the different perspectives that could help determine what should be done in regards to minimum wage.
III. [Establish Credibility]: I have been researching the topic of minimum wage for a few weeks now as well as have worked for minimum wage.
Bringing about change to minimum wage is very complex topic as it has a lot of implications throughout our economy as a whole.
IV. [Thesis and Preview]: With this being said I would like to discuss three perspectives that help us explore minimum wage further than just a number.
I hope that by displaying these three perspectives and by you guys giving me the opportunity to hear your opinions on the topic can help everyone form there own personalized perspective.
Body
First lets take a look at what Minimum wage is a why it exists.
According to the Brittanica Encyclopedia Minimum wage can be defined as, “Minimum wage, wage rate established by collective bargaining or by government regulation that specifies the lowest rate at which labour may be employed. The rate may be defined in terms of the amount, period (i.e., hourly, weekly, monthly, etc.), and scope of coverage.(Editors, Brittanica).
It is important to understand what minimum wage is defined as so it can be clearly established the meaning behind it.
B. I would now like to tell you how minimum wage amounts are determined. In order to this we will look at The Official Gazette where in the article I found it was stated that, “Minimum wage rates are determined by factors such as poverty threshold, prevailing wage rates as determined by the Labor Force Survey, and socio-economic indicators (i.e. inflation, employment figures, Gross Regional Domestic Product, among others), which insures better workers protection.” (The Gazette).
So as we can see there is a lot of factors going into determining the rates of minimum wage and that there are a lot of variables that change so that is where the argument could be made that change could be argued.
C. The last part of this perspective I would like to shed some light on is the difference between federal minimum wage and state minimum wage. This was new to me as I had never realized there was a federal minimum as well, so hopefully this is helpful to some of you guys’ too. In an article written by Al Krulick on debt.org says, “ The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009, set forth by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).” He then continues on to talk about state minimum wage and says, “States can pass their own minimum wage laws. These laws can be lower than, equal to or higher than the federal minimum wage, or states can have no minimum wage laws at all.” while discussing the states minimum wage he brought a point I found interesting when he said, “If a state has no minimum wage law or its minimum wage is lower than the federal law, workers are entitled to the federal wage.”
D. This is something to think about as a closing of this perspective in what minimum wage is and how it is determined.
II. The next perspective I would like to discuss is the one that would like to see an increase in Minimum wage and what a change like that could lead to.
In an article I found on the University of New Hampshire scholar webpage to reads, “Nationwide, 16.5 percent of all hourly workers would be affected by raising the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.00 per hour.”
This change in minimum wage effects a lot of people in the Work force across the United States.
In article written by William Dunkelburg titled Why Raising Minimum Wage Kills Jobs he states, “Ten states have announced an increase in their minimum wage effective January 1, mostly because their legislation requires an adjustment to the Consumer Price Index inflation measure.” (Dunkelburg 1).
This is essentially saying that due to raises or inflation in price to their products or whatever service the employer provides that they are forced to increase minimum wage.
III. Lastly I would like to show you the perspective of those who believe the minimum wage rate should be left alone completely.
In an article written by Kevin Hassett and Michael Strain, they said, “A higher wage makes it more expensive for firms to hire workers.” (Hassett,Strain).
This saying that if the wage is raised it makes it more expensive to hire people which is believed that it would result in less jobs and more difficulty of getting a job.
In a short excerpt from David Henderson short piece titled Most of the benefits of a Minimum Wage Increase would not go to Poor Households, He states, “to the extent they are able, employers will offset the higher minimum wage by reducing non-money components of worker compensation.” (Henderson).
This saying that although an increase in hourly wage they would other benefits that are not monetary compensations.
Now that I presented you information about minimum wage, and the perspectives that feel change is necessary and others that feel it is not so much. You will likely have noticed that I focused more on giving you information about Minimum Wage and brief information about very precise perspectives. This was by design because I did not want to sway your perspective with other peoples reasonings. I would like to open up a discussion with you guys’ my peers about minimum wage.
Dialogue Questions
Close-ended Questions
How many of you had some sort of opinion on Minimum wage prior to me talking about it today?
How many of you have altered or changed your perspective after hearing my speech? If so what was your original perspective and what helped facilitate your change of mind?
Is there any other options or perspectives you have that is different than the ones that I presented?
II. Open-ended Questions
What perspective that I discussed in my speech did you agree with more and why?
For those of you that feel that Minimum wage should be increased do you feel that it is worth it even if product prices would be increased?
Conclusion
[Signal End] As we have discussed together today
[Review] Minimum wage is a hot topic right now and is being talked about across the United States
We talked about what Minimum wage is and how it is set and some of the differences between federal and state minimum wage. We also discussed about two different perspectives of those who think that Minimum wage should be increased and those who think it should stay where it is at. (Potentially other perspective given by peers)
Using what we discussed here today I hope that you guys were able to develop an opinion on Minimum wage.
III. [Closing Line] I would like to thank you all for responding to my question and providing insight on your opinions! Minimum wage likely isn’t going anywhere so regardless of your perspective I hope that you all stand by your opinions because no body can tell you how to feel. Thank you.