- Xiaomeng (Aaron) Liu
By Xiaomeng (Aaron) Liu
SYLP student
At this time, some employees who are earning minimum wage expect the government to raise their wages to further improve their quality of life.
However, some people don’t know that raising the minimum wage may not help anyone at all. In my opinion, the U.S. government shouldn’t raise the federal minimum wage.
Photo by SYLP volunteers and Amy Lu
It will cause a lot of negative impact if the government carelessly makes this decision. Some employees will get more money when the government raises the minimum wage, but other employees will get fired because the employers can’t afford paying these wages. Wages, like other prices in the marketplace, behave according to the laws of supply and demand. If prices go up, demand goes down. When the cost of labor becomes more expensive, fewer people get hired.
As the minimum wage goes up, employers are going to have two choices: lay off workers or raise prices of goods.
If employers decide to lay off workers, that would mean that the raise didn’t help those who are unemployed.
When employees get increased wages and the prices of goods are increased at the same time, the U.S. government will have to print more paper currency. It may cause inflation. ♦
Xiaomeng (Aaron) Liu can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.
(The stories in this issue are written by SYLP students, not Northwest Asian Weekly staff. Opinions herein do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of the newspaper.)