in the uk under 21s are £4.98, which is apparently $7.96.
What ticks me off is i make a little (very little) over that and the proposed wage rise here is over 21s only. Im doing the exact same job and getting paid less, its grossly unfair, i want my wage drawn level with over 21s.
As for general increases i dont know, it wouldnt help unemployment but im not an economist. I cant fathom all the precise details of what effects would consequentaly occur from that.
Funny how my work yearly pay rises were published but i got jack squat, over 21s only.
a** h***s.

Minimum wage in my state is $7.25.

I DO believe it should increase.  In all honesty, I don't believe it's enough to live comfortably, based off our current economy.  That being said, with how poor our economy is, raising the wage would only put us further into debt, I imagine.

However, I make more than $20 an hour and I can tell you it's difficult to take care of a 2 person family with just that.

Singelli : Well to be fair and not trying to insult, but you are a teacher. I can remember some of my High School teachers going on strike for more money and benefits. Public School Teachers don't tend to make that much (at least to me they don't) and I don't know if its any better for Private School Teachers. Teachers should be paid more as long as they are doing a great job and the students are preforming in their classroom (I'm not going to support a teacher pay increase if students in the class are not doing a good job and its proven that the teacher is at fault and not the student...which is debateable.)

my minimum wage is 7.25 here as well and i think increasing minimum wage to 8.25 is a good thing because there are a lot of hard workers out there who deserve more than 7.25 an hour so my opinion is yes i do agree that would be a good thing.

warmaker : You pretty much summed up my beliefs on Minimum Wage increase. People shouldn't be trying to live a life just on Minimum Wage its hard, heck maybe even almost impossible depending on what you except out of your life and money. People should be trying to get a job that has a salary and not an hourly $7.25. Even Singelli said that she is making about $20 an hour and she mentions that it can be difficult in trying to support a 2 family household, let alone someone who has children and has to make a living on Minimum Wage.

Hmm.. that is an interesting point I guess.  Look for jobs that require more skills and pay more!  

Teachers SHOULD definitely get paid more.  I can't imagine how I'd pay for a child or two. I mean, this month my husband and I had to try and survive off Ramen....  (granted, there were a few unexpected expenses, but still!)

Minimum wage in California is $8.00 an hour. I think it should be raised because it's pretty expensive to live in California, well the nicer parts anyway. And $8.00 an hour isn't really enough to live on. Unless you live with 3-4 other people. Some people don't like having to have roommates. But that's my opinion on the matter.

Oldschool41 : Well my perspective on this one is probably a little different than most because I am a writer and it just so happens that if you want to write as your vocation it is one of the most difficult ways to attempt to make a living. Although technically I am a freelancer I have worked for years for little or no money. It’s a catch-22 because even though I would like to be paid and would like to be at a point where I can make a decent living if not a comfortable living off of my writing, I don’t feel as if I am in a position to demand to be paid because I would risk losing exposure. Despite years and years of experience I feel like I am still paying my dues.

I am probably in the minority here but I would love to make an hourly wage for what I do even if it was minimum wage. It would definitely make things a little easier on me. If I wasn’t limited to what I can do physically I would be open to working retail. I do think that minimum wage should increase slightly on an annual basis if nothing else as the cost of living rises. There should be at happy medium at least.

I don't think it should increase at all!
Minimum wage isn't meant to be able to live comfortably off of.
If you're working minimum wage, you should deal with it and live it a lil' rough or get a second job.
Minimum wage raises, so does everything else. It's not so much a solution as it is a means of keeping
the mouth shut on the poor.
We don't need to decrease it either, we just need to let it ride through and let the economy stabilize the best it can with it.
Changing it just causes instability in economies.
If you want more out of life, work harder for it. If you fail, take that experience and try and try again.

Keep it the same.

Reasons: Raising minimum wage doesn't help anyone in the end. It hurts the economy because when they raise it, prices go up to compensate for companies paying their employees more. So in the end, it only makes it harder, because while you make forty dollars a week more, you pay more for every single item you buy everyday. On top of that, the people that make more than minimum wage pay more and make the same. In the end, it can only weaken the dollar.

The government complains that the economy is bad. Meanwhile, all the big businesses have all the money. If the government raised the minimum wage, then sure, it might cause a few layoffs, but ultimately people will make more money. More money in people's pocket's equals people spending more, meaning the economy gets better.

thing1 : It also leads to small businesses going out of business. ^-^

AmpJack : not necessarily... if small businesses are required to raise their minimum, and they make their prices so they can compete, then everything will be good.

I have a strange stance on minimum wage that corresponds with immigration. (This is from an American stance)

I don't think minimum wage should change at all. Leave it at where it is. An economy loves consistency anyway, so lets not throw curve balls. If we increase minimum wage, it will only cause inflation. I'm much more partial to tax increases/decreases than minimum wage increases. If we instead lower it, many people will be hurt by the drop in income and their expenses remaining constant. Just leave it as is. Inject money into and withhold money from the market and the side effects will be dramatically less.

However, any sort of minimum wage is bad for a small business. In a small business, the portion of people hired will be hired for the more menial (not derogatory) jobs. Clerks and or paper pushers or waiters or whatever. These guys are the ones getting paid minimum wage. If you raise minimum wage, you GREATLY increase the costs of a small business because the large majority of the people hired will receive a pay raise. Small business want to pay as little as possible for those jobs because, while necessary, they are the largest expense.

However, if we left it Laissez faire, those towards the bottom would hurt. I would love if we kept the minimum wage for citizens, but non-citizens have no minimum wage restrictions.

This would allow illegal immigrants to be legal, but have less benefits until they become citizens. It would be helpful to small business because they pay whatever is the market's natural value. Also, this may lower immigration. Currently, an illegal immigrant will be paid the $7.25, but now they may be paid $4.00 an hour. If more immigrants show up, the supply has increased and therefore the demand will decrease, lowering pay to $3.00 an hour. As the pay decreases, the option of immigrating looks less and less appealing. However, once here, receiving citizenship will allow all rights of citizens, including the higher pay.

The first places that enacted a minimum wage did so explicitly to create unemployment (Southern US, South Africa). It's easy to understand : if your productivity is below the set amount, then you won't be hired.


I say drop it altogether. Anything not willingly negotiated is inherently bad since someone exerted coercion on someone else

We have no minimum wage by law in my country but it is however differentiated to each sector of work. So the minimum wage what you will get depends on what you do.

Oldschool41 : You may as well support this measure. Raising the minimum wage by a dollar isn't going to accomplish much; it's more of a publicity stunt by politicians who want to appear active while not doing anything. That being said, perhaps that little bit of extra money will help workers a little. Working for minimum wage sucks. Ideally minimum wages should be raised to reflect the cost of living and tied to inflation so it people wouldn't have to worry about it falling behind in twenty years.