Minimum wage
The minimum wage is the least amount of salary that employees of a business can be paid. Around the world, the minimum wage is enforced as a law that every company must follow. If companies do not give their employees at least the minimum wage, the companies will be forced to pay an expensive fine for breaking the law.
Minimum wage is a relative term. Different countries have different minimum wages. Nunavut in Canada has a minimum wage of $11.00 per hour. Ontario, another place in Canada has a minimum wage of $10.25 per hour.
Some people think the minimum wage should be raised, so poor working people will have more money and enjoy more human rights. Others think it is worse because the government will not have enough money to pay all the employees, so they will raise the taxes or raise the inflation. Some people think that the minimum will drastically hurt employees because companies only hire employees whose labor is worth the price they are required to pay. They think that if the minimum wage is raised employees will lose their job because companies cannot afford to pay them the raised minimum wage.
Minimum Wage Media
Graph showing the basic supply and demand model of the minimum wage in the labor market.
Modern economics suggests that a moderate minimum wage may increase employment as labor markets are monopsonistic and workers lack bargaining power.
Estimated minimum wage effects on employment from a meta-study of 64 other studies showed insignificant employment effect (both practically and statistically) from minimum-wage raises. The most precise estimates were heavily clustered at or near zero employment effects (elasticity = 0).
CBO table illustrating projections of the effects of minimum wage increases on employment and income, under two scenarios
A 2010 study published in the Review of Economics and Statistics compared 288 pairs of contiguous U.S. counties with minimum wage differentials from 1990 to 2006 and found no adverse employment effects from a minimum wage increase. Contiguous counties with different minimum wages are in purple. All other counties are in white.
NYC Rally and March to raise the minimum wage in America.
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