In recent years, there has been a large amount of controversy over the issue of increasing the minimum wage. One side argues the false rhetoric of the need to establish a living wage, to avoid the exploitation of the people who don’t know any better. The other side argues that, by increasing the minimum wage, there will be many small businesses shut down and jobs lost. The group that takes most of the fall for this decision is teenagers. The group that needs the experiences from entry-level jobs the most, the group that is least likely to recover and help themselves, the group that these jobs were designed for. Increasing the minimum wage will prove detrimental to teenagers as it limits their experiences of on the job work for when they get out of high school, is more likely to hurt minorities and immigrants and favors wealthier and better educated candidates, and makes them the ones that are hurt the most.

 A common myth is that those being payed minimum wage are mainly adults or people older than 25. This is a common point in the argument for increasing the minimum wage, as they claim that a majority of minimum wage earners are actually adults with families. The Bureau of Labor Statistics completed a study to find that 

Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 11 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 2 percent of workers age 25 and older.(Characteristics) 

This simply means that teenagers are only twenty percent of those earning hourly wages, yet they make up about half of those making federal minimum wage or less.  This means that a very small proportion of adults are making minimum wage; however, they are working more hourly jobs than teenagers, these jobs are just paid higher than those at minimum wage. The talking point that there are significantly more adults working minimum wage jobs is false because a majority of workers who work minimum wage jobs are teenagers and a small percentage of adults working hourly jobs get paid minimum wage. This also leads to the teenagers being hurt the most by the increased minimum wage is increased.

An increase in minimum wage would result in many people losing their jobs, and with minimal benefits from such increases. In an article on Cato Institute, Chris Edwards analyzes the founding from economist Joseph Sabia finding that due to an elasticity of low-skilled labor that “a 10 percent increase in minimum wage reduces low-skilled employment by 1 to 3 percent” (Edwards). This is compounded on the other sources that agree with these sources showing teen unemployment changing. Two associate professors did a spatial analysis on the effects of teen employment and found the effect on teen employment to be “-2.1% for every 10% increase in minimum wage” (Kalenkoski and Lacombe). This means that if we increase the minimum to only $7.81, it will most likely increase unemployment amongst teens by 2.1%. This is a huge number, especially if you put into fact that if you increase it by more it could prove to be damaging to young adults and teenagers. This supported by yet another source; however, this source shows state minimum wage laws, and how increasing them above the federal rate changed teenager’s employment rates. In an another study done by Mark Partridge and Jamie Partridge, that an increase in minimum wage damages the employment rates for teenagers, they found “a 10 percent increase in minimum wage would increase the unemployment rate by about 2 percent” (Partridge 369). This means that by increasing the minimum wage you are increasing teen unemployment by quite a bit. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found the current unemployment rate of people ages 16 to 19 to be “15 percent” (Employment Situation). This means that if we increase the minimum wage 10 percent or $.71 to $7.81, could boost the teen unemployment rate up to 17 percent. The scarier part is that if you increase it again by 78 cents, then it would increase unemployment again to 19 percent. This could be pretty detrimental to the age group as you continually decrease their chances at getting a first job which is essential to learning basic skills as an employer such as working in a team. All of these source prove that increasing the minimum wage does in fact have an effect on employment and more specifically teenager employment. In addition to this, the minimum wage is hardly used by larger corporations as larger corporations pay about the same as the productivity and often give pay raises to the most efficient employees. It is also not as important because wage mobility in America is actually better than people think. It is possible to start off your life poor and end up rich or in much better shape, thus eliminating the real need to increase the minimum wage

What looks like fairly low levels of relative mobility in the U.S. translates into surprisingly high levels of absolute mobility. My research finds that roughly 40 percent of today’s 40-year-olds who grew up in the bottom fifth of income remain in the bottom fifth. But over 80 percent are better off in absolute terms than their parents, after adjusting for the rising cost of living and declining household size. Stunningly, the median change experienced by today’s fortysomething was a 93 percent rise in household income compared with that of their parents. (Winship)

This means that someone can start off poor and grow up in a poor area and up being very successful, thus making the need to raise minimum wage just pointless and if anything causes problems for the people that need the entry level jobs in order to have wage mobility. The future of America is unable to gain job experience because of an increase of minimum wage, which is not as helpful as previously thought.

It is commonly thought that increasing the minimum wage will help those in poverty get out of poverty and being able to provide for their families. It is good to try to help those in need to get the tools and ability to get out of their current situation and into a better one; however, increasing the minimum wage does not help them achieve this. Instead it finds them in a worse hole than previously before and does not help them too much. In fact, the Detroit News posted in one of their articles citing the Congressional Budget Office’s report on raising the minimum wage up to 10.10 dollars an hour that “less than 20 percent of pay raises would benefit the impoverished” (News). This means increasing the minimum wage is wildly inefficient in helping the poor. There are much better way of helping poorer communities by increasing the minimum wage, especially because the same article from Detroit News included that “The CBO estimated that an increase in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour as proposed by Democrats would boost the paychecks of 16.5 million people. But half a million of them would lose their jobs as a result” (News). This means you’re truly not helping people by raising minimum wage, in fact you are hurting many people by increasing the minimum wage. An increase may be helping a few people by getting them more money; however, it can hurt people by making them lose their jobs. Of the teenager group, the increase in minimum wage hurts minorities, immigrants, and those from poorer areas the most. In a video by Professor Don Boudreaux, the professor goes over how the minimum wage ends up hurting the groups it was set out to help in the first place. He states that “marginalized groups like minorities, the impoverished, and immigrants will be some of those most effected” (Boudreaux). He cites the reason for why impoverished or immigrants are being disadvantaged in this situation. He states that if employers have to cut employees because of increasing costs they are most likely going to go with the most qualified and best candidate. This means an immigrant that does not have a full grasp on the English is not going to get the job, because they can hire someone who was born here and can communicate clearly with customers. He also cites that if someone is running a restaurant they may be more likely to go with the candidate that has better schooling, this can mean the rich kid that goes to school in the better school district will get the job over the poor kid, who lives in the inner city, where the school system is underfunded and inferior to the other school. This automatically puts the kids from privileged backgrounds at an advantage, when the kids that need a job in order to help support the rest of their family is left without a job. It is all caused because an increase in minimum wage makes employers much pickier with who they hire due to increase of expenses from hiring someone, or they have to pick who to fire, the poor English speaking immigrant from a poor school district or the kid born in America who attends the best school system in the state (Boudreaux).  Raising the minimum wage just allows for the elite to stay elite while those below them stay poor, instead of helping them the policy ends up hurting them. Such a policy of increasing minimum wage just allows the kids to privileged backgrounds to continue to succeed as they are the ones that will keep the jobs while the impoverished stay poor. Thus when the minimum wage is increased and employers have to cut jobs in order to stay above water, those that are in the need of the job the most are the ones that get cut and hurt the most. If there is anything more important for the start of a career than to get an entry-level job in order to gain experience, and that by increasing the minimum wage you are taking that from the teenagers today.

A first job is often thought as insignificant in the long-run of things; however, it is actually very important to start off someone’s career. Whether you graduated high school or not or went to college or not, it is still vital for a teenager to get the entry level job so that they can start working their ways up the ladder to make more money eventually. This is why it is vital for teenagers to keep their jobs and to start their way up the ladders, to live the American Dream. As Boudreaux stated in his video that it is very important for teenagers to start working as teenagers in order for them to get a better job down the road. If they never get that first job as a teenager, it will become very hard to find a job later in life. If a college graduate has no work experience before, he will find it very hard to find a first job once he leaves college. This is why it is imperative for teenagers to have their first jobs. In order to have a chance of getting these jobs, the teenager needs to be in an economic climate that promotes growth in companies and allows for more companies to hire more employees. An good economic climate is not made with heavy government regulations, that includes an increase to the minimum wage which would strangle small business and allow many teenagers to lose their jobs as a result of downsizing for companies that cannot afford to pay employees so much. Raising the minimum wage is disadvantaging the youth, because they will not be able to get the jobs they need in order to gain experience and make themselves a qualified candidate for a higher paying better job.

Increasing the minimum wage will choke the economy by adding more regulations, thus killing small business and destroying the middle class, it will cause for the disadvantaged to not gain opportunities to get their families in a better situation. Wage Mobility is actually great in America, thus the need for minimum wage is essentially eliminated because most people can climb the ladder and start in poverty, yet end up out of poverty and making a decent living. Increasing the minimum wage is not a good idea because it just ends up hurting those that need those jobs the most and it eliminates jobs from teenagers. The jobs that teenagers need in order to get a jumpstart in their careers, so that they can make themselves more qualified for jobs that give out higher salaries to their employees. The minimum wage hardly helps those that are in need of it as well, in fact it hurts those disadvantaged, even in a country where wage mobility allows someone born in poverty to prosper and even become millionaires, there should be no need for an increase in minimum wage just purely off the facts that it hurts teen unemployment and is essentially pointless to raise due to people’s ability to get the entry level job and work their way up and out of poverty, yet by raising the minimum wage you are taking it away from them while they are teenagers. Capitalism was made for people to prosper without government’s help; however, with increased government interference, like raising minimum wage, it hurts the teenagers that need it in order to grow out of poverty. This is why the government should do what it does best… absolutely nothing. If the government wants these people to get out of poverty let capitalism do what it does best.
