A minimum wage is the lowest form of compensation that employees may receive, be it hourly, daily or in a monthly form. On other terms, it may also be defined as the lowest wage that an employee may peddle his/her labor. Despite the minimal wages law exhibiting great jurisdictions, most opinion makers’ epic large proportions of differences in terms of the pros and the cons that the said minimal wages exhibit.
Some of the pros brought forth about the minimal wages include the opinion that with the existence of minimum wages, the standards of living are bound to improve immensely with some quarters, confessing of a reduction in poverty while others saying that the business has become more and more efficient.
The cons that have been associated with the minimum wages include the increase in the rate of unemployment and the low productivity among some workers due to the inexperience among some workers hence benefiting the more skilled workers over the lesser skilled ones.
Economists differ on the presumed impact of minimum wages in the real world. The distress usually comes as a result of competing and comparing the empirical tests of demand and supply and the degree of efficiency in the labor markets that models most efficiently predict competition (Letcher 31). Some of the empirical studies that have been studied about these minimal wages include among others the effects on the employment sector which until now stands as the most studied aspect.
Rates of the minimal wages vary widely across different scopes around the world, not only in a specific monetary rate for instance the difference in the monetary rates in the United States and the United Kingdom, where it is $8.67 in Washington in the United States and 6.08 pounds in the United Kingdom for those that are over the age of 21, but also the period in which the rates are paid greatly differs (Blackman 93).
It is explicitly hard to disintegrate the minimal wage facts from other variables that may have any considerable effects on employment. There are some thought out facts that try to argue in favor of the minimum wages, some of the in scripted pros include the belief that even the standards of living of the most vulnerable class in the most ravaged societies greatly increases. Another advantage depicted is that it encourages the workers to work harder and motivates them more (Carmen 89).
It is good to know that with each passing day people try to get money legally due to their work but not in any way that is out of the law. It also encourages automation and efficiency is also encouraged more in the industry. Some researchers are also of the opinion that the low paying jobs are scrapped and in this regard more and more people are forced to work harder and earn payments from the highest earning jobs. Some researchers who are for these minimum wages epic that there is increased developments in the technological departments.
On the other hand the criticizers of this law epic that it tends to hurt the small business and alternatively favoring the larger ones. These criticizers continue to epic that the minimum wage tends to reduce the demand expected of workers where they argue that this is greatly caused by the reduction in the number of the jobs and also, by the reduction in the number of hours.
The inflation in terms of price also tends to increase as the prices of goods are raised by the respective business while trying to compensate. They also argue that the poorest and less productive workers are left out in favor of others.
The researchers also argue that small salaries can easily result in the reduction of the working places. They continue to argue further that the smallest firms with payroll budgets that are limited find it extremely hard to retain their most valuable workers, since they are unable to give them considerable attractive wages as compared to the unskilled workers, who are paid the artificial high minimum and so the task of adding more workers become great.
These cons have also rendered it ineffective when trying to reduce poverty and also more damaging to business than other methods. It has also been proved that it discourages further education since most people are lured into the job market. Finally, it exudes the con of wiping off the low cost competitors from the markets and impedes the different organizations from reducing the costs of the wages during trade recessions, which augurs into inefficiencies in the economic sectors of the various industries (Lewinsky 11).
Despite the cons that have been put across by various researchers, proof across various sections in the world Diaspora has only explicated immense pros brought forth by these minimal wages. One example that clearly demonstrates this is a study carried out in the US that showed that the payrolls and the rank of the working places increase with each passing year thanks to the minimum wages (Lewinsky 11).
Another example is the introduction of the minimal wage in the United Kingdom in 1999, where it was initially strongly opposed by the conservative party but it is no longer opposed and the conservatives even reversed their stand in the year 2000 after it reduced the hiring rates. It also reduced the working hours and the prices have increased greatly coupled by the increase in the production of the current workers.
This research paper will look in a great perspective on the different minimum wages that have been put in different states (cities) of the United States of America. Due to the outsized state of the states, the paper will only give examples of some of the most common states or cities that have developed considerable efforts in the introduction of the minimum wages and for jobs that have been shielded by the minimum wage laws of the federal state.
A common exclusion of the minimum wage of the federal system is a company that exudes revenues that are way below 500000 US dollars per annum while not being involved in any business of the interstates. In addition, the employees that receive a certain part of their salaries from tips are expected to have their whole compensation including tips meet those minimum wages.
So on often basis, their hourly wages before tips is occasionally lesser than the minimum wages (Willis 75). Moreover, some cities within states may experience higher minimum wages that the rest of the cities. The paper will look into seven different states namely, Washington, Texas, Ohio, New York, Kansas, Iowa, California.
The first city that will give us a close overview of the different minimum wages in US is the city of Washington. The 2011 figures put the minimum wage as 8.67 US dollars. The minimum wage applies to both the agriculture and the jobs that are non-agriculture, but despite this the people that are 14 and 15 years in age may receive 85% of the minimum wage that is 7.37 in US dollars.
Business Analysts have gone further to predict an impressive minimum wage of 9.04 US dollars by the beginning of the year 2012. The minimum wage of Texas is 7.25 similar to that of New York which also enjoys a minimum for relieved workers of 536.10 US dollars.
The minimum wage of Ohio exceeds that of New York and Texas to post at 7.40 US dollars and researchers expect it to increase to 7.70 US dollars by the beginning of the year 2012. Employees who are 16 years old and where the employers gross is less than 237,000 US dollars per annum receive a minimum wage of 7.25 US dollars. For most years, the minimum wage of Kansas was the lowest in the whole nation, a partly 2.65 US dollars but it has since been increased to meet the federal level and now stands high on 7.25 US dollars.
The minimum wage of Iowa stands at the same level as that of Kansas. Service establishments and small retailers do not necessarily require to pay the minimum wage, mostly those that receive less than 300,000 annually (Willis 75). Sometimes, 60% of the minimum wage which is presently about 4.35 US dollars is given to tipped workers.
The last of the sample states is California with a minimum wage of 8.00 US dollars and San Francisco city which receives a considerably high minimum wage of 9.92 US dollars. The minimum wage decree in this state and city states that relieved workers must at least make twice the minimum wage of the state.
Works Cited
Blackman, William. The employer’s legal handbook: manage your employees and workplace. New Jersey, NJ: Lewis Publishers, 2001. Print.
Carmen, Reinhart. Minimum wage fixing: an international review of practices and problems. New York, NY: Princeton University Press, 2009. Print.
Letcher, Trevor, and Daniel, Vallero. Biennial report of the industrial welfare commission of the state. Oxford, UK: Academic Press, 2011. Print.
Lewinsky, Allison. Minimum wage policy in Great Britain and the United States. New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers Inc, 2007. Print.
Willis, Nordlund. The quest for a living wage: the history of the federal minimum wage, New York, NY: Greenwood publishing Group, 2007. Print.