Higher! Higher! and Higher! Unemployment and Inflation
There is an ongoing debate in this country about whether or not we should raise the
minimum wage, with most Democrats saying yes, and Republicans saying no. Both sides
have their merits, but America wants a solution, and neither of those two solutions will fix
the problem we face in America today. You won’t hear many people willing to say this,
and certainly no politicians are willing to, but the only economically feasible solution to
keep inflation as low as possible and as many people in jobs as possible, which is to
eliminate the federal minimum wage.
“A few years ago, I was in need of some extra cash so I decided to sell my laptop on eBay.
A few days later, I got an offer. It wasn’t great, but then neither was my laptop. But before
the payment went through, I got a call from the government.
‘We have decided that the offer you got was too low. We’re not going to let you sell your
laptop for anything less than three hundred dollars.’
‘But no one is willing to pay me three hundred dollars,’ I said. ‘I’d rather have two
hundred bucks than nothing.’
‘Oh, no, you can’t do that,’ I was told. ‘That would be unfair to you.’
Far fetched? Maybe—it didn’t actually happen to me. But the fact is it happens to
defenseless victims every single day, albeit in a somewhat different form: through
enforcement of the minimum wage.” (Watkins 1) Why should somebody that is perfectly
willing and able to work not be allowed to because he is being paid too little? This is
especially true for teenagers who are looking for a few extra bucks, and the job market is
not easy for teenagers to get into, with a large majority of stores requiring a high school
education or aged 18 or older. Why not let them take whatever they can get? They’re not
paying for their house, they don’t have bills, and they need the money for a new video
game system or phone, not food for the kids. This would encourage companies to hire the
new generation, as they are cheaper, as well as to incentivise companies hiring less skilled
workers.
Assuming we keep the minimum wage as it is, or increase it, and with the constantly
depreciating cost of robotic technology, robots would take over parts of the workforce; for
example, as soon as 2016, Panera Bread will replace all of its cashiers with automated
