Does Raising Minimum Wage Help or Hurt You in 6 Minutes - YouTube

Don’t you love a red ripe juicy strawberry?

Chances are they were picked by a migrant farmer for less than minimum wage so our moms

can go to the market and buy ‘em for $4 a basket.

I think most of us can agree that the hardest jobs are often rewarded with the worst wages.

I don’t mean to say that being an engineer or a cop is easy.

But think about it like this.

The migrant farmer is bending over for 12 hours a day picking strawberries so some *sshole

like me can go to the market and buy them for $4 a basket.

I mean minimum wage doesn’t even apply to these guys because they don’t have their

papers.

This is exactly why we have minimum wage.

To protect those who are paid the least from being exploited by those who are paid the

most.

Hello everyone.

Thought Monkey here.

Today we’re going to take a look at minimum wage.

Why it exists.

Why some think we should get rid of it.

And why others say it should be increased.

First, why does minimum wage exist?

Think about it like this.

Jobs are all about supplying a skill for someone that has a demand for that skill.

Take Brad Pitt for example.

A handsome, talented, famous actor.

Movie studios pay him millions for his looks fame and talent so that they can make millions.

His skill is rare and he’s willing to exchange his looks for bucks.

This is called voluntary exchange.

It’s when people sell their labor for dollars.

Unskilled workers are paid less than Brad because their jobs take very little training.

Take Jonny for example.

He works as a cashier at McDonalds.

He needs to learn how the register works and how to take customer’s orders.

99% of people can learn this in a few hours.

The downside of having a job that takes little training?

You’re easily replaceable, you smell like French fries, and of course your low wage.

You might ask yourself why businesses like McDonald’s don’t pay their employees $4

an hour.

Well they used to.

In 1938 the U.S. government passed a law ensuring the protection of workers.

Part of this law was to create a minimum wage.

I think most of us can agree that this law was important.

Why?

Because before the law was passed low wage workers faced 10 hour days, 6 day weeks, performing

the same monotonous task over and over and over again all for pennies on the hour.

This still happens.

Those Nikes you wear?

People can be paid as low as 6 cents an hour to make.

There are two main arguments about how we should handle minimum wage.

One side says that when we raise it, the power of businesses increase to fire workers, cut

hours, or raise prices – all which hurt low wage workers the most.

This sounds reasonable.

Most people on this side say that regulation messes up the free market.

And if we just let the free market be, these problems would work themselves out.

Well, we’ve tried this and having no minimum wage simply leads to worker exploitation.

But just because there’s a minimum wage and that minimum wage goes up from time to

time, it doesn’t mean people are better off than they were before.

The guy working at McDonalds for $2 an hour in 1970 is actually better off than the guy

working there in 2017 making $7.25 an hour.

Why?

Something called inflation.

And this is where the argument for raising it comes in.

Barack Obama once said that in the wealthiest nation on earth, nobody that works full time

should have to live in poverty and if minimum wage actually kept pace with economic growth,

low wage workers would be getting paid much more.

On this side of the argument the idea is that free market capitalism is a system that values

the profit of business over the welfare of people.

So if we were to let our economy be free without governmental regulation it would end up exploiting

the masses while providing massive profits for those in control.

Despite both sides of the argument, I think we can agree that there is a problem.

First Jonny who works full time at McDonalds, has two children and a wife to take care of,

and is hard working, should not have to live in poverty.

So what’s the answer here?

Should it be raised?

Removed?

Kept the same?

According to a recent study done by the University of Washington – it seems that meeting somewhere

in the middle is probably what’s best.

In Seattle an increase in minimum wage from $9.50 to $11 led to positive changes in how

it affected the low wage worker.

But when Seattle raised the wage to $13 an hour, the hours of low-wage earners were reduced

by 9% which effected their monthly income by lowering it $125 bucks on average.

In a report titled The Effect of Minimum Wages on Employment by the Economist David Neumark

– it’s clear once again that raising the wages too much may harm the people paid the

least.

But he also brings up the fact that it’s important to think about the utilitarian idea

that the benefits that some get from the wage increase might be worth the cost of potential

job loss or hours cut that others may see.

The facts are clear – and that is that there is not enough research done yet to figure

this out.

The solution to our problem probably lies somewhere in the middle of each side of the

argument – as it often does.

A minimum wage set at the right number will not harm the economy while at the same time

providing a fairer wage to the lowest paid workers.

But if you go over a certain number it may just start hurting those it’s trying to

help the most.

This country has an interesting history.

As the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

And the government is supposed to protect that from happening.

After all we give it a big bunch of our money to do so in the form of taxes.

But it’s hard for the government to protect us when it’s controlled mostly by rich people

who have very strong ties to big businesses.

I’m not saying that all people in government or all big businesses are bad – but enough

of them are to f*ck it all up.

And of course there is a lot of propaganda – on both sides of the argument - that confuses

people at best and brainwashes them at worst.

Don’t forget that minimum wage exists as a protection from the harsh realities of the

free mrket.

And this is why the government isn’t always so bad.

Yes it’s also evil and broken sometimes.

But aren’t we all.

All I know is that without the government’s protection the free market would have a chance

to make us slaves to the most powerful companies.

And frankly I don’t want to be working at Walmart making $4 an hour.

Actually I don’t want to be working there at all.

An unregulated free market only works when we know that it works in the best interest

of the public.

But right now we know that it doesn’t.

Thank you for watching.

Please like, share, and subscribe the video.

It helps a lot!