Is Increasing the Minimum Wage Worth the Fight?

Here are 5 reasons why the wage should or should not be increased.

After last week blog post, entitled Let’s Take An Oath to End Homelessness, I suggested the idea of advocating the rise of the federal minimum wage to aid those being displaced by gentrification. After hearing mix reviews about the idea from those who have read it, I want this week’s post to review the supporting and unsupported perspectives of the idea.

On January 1st 2015, a bill to raise the federal minimum wage in Maryland, set forth by Maryland governor O’Malley, was put into action. The bill enforces a steady increase of the federal minimum wage in the state of Maryland to $10.10 per hour by 2018. According to The Baltimore Sun article entitled State’s Minimum Wage Workers Getting a Raise, in the eyes of the Maryland working class citizens this bill is a good idea but not so much in the eyes of some Maryland state legislators and business owners.

In the article, a mother-of-six, who works full-time at a warehouse stated, “I’m going to jump for joy because I can maybe pay my bills”. Through the point of view of Maryland’s working-class citizens, this pay raise lighten the burden of living paycheck-to-paycheck. For example, the extra money will assist in paying all the bills on time but also being able to afford groceries for the mouth. For the working class they see the following pros to this bill:

· Reduce poverty

· Reduce income inequality

· Reduce race and gender inequality

· Reduce employee turnover

· Allow people to afford housing and everyday essentials

The article also shared the opinions of those against the bill. The owner of Adventure Park USA and New Market, Larry Stottlemyer, claimed “ it’s a bitter pill we have to swallow. The government has done nothing but to cause us a major problem.” Through his point of view and others in his position this bill will cause the following cons:

· Force businesses to lay off employees

· Increased prices of customers goods

· Disadvantage low skilled workers

· Decreased employee benefit and increased tax payment

· Encourage company to outsource jobs to countries where production cost will be lower

This debate illustrates scholar Karls Marx perspective upon the problems created by the division of labor in our capitalist society. Marx states, “the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another” (Estranged Labour, 1844). This statement implies, that workers are enslaved by the produce of their work for the sake of another person benefit. Those who are supportive of the increase in wage represent the enslaved workers trying to break away from the inequality of the capitalist system. The state legislators and business owners who are not in support of the increase in wage represent the person of higher authority who own the benefits of their workers labors. This division of labor acknowledges that social class differences put mankind against each other.

As you can see, this debate about the increase in minimum wage is a battle between those at the top of the capitalist hierarchy and those at the bottom. Those at the top are arguing from an economical point of view while those at the bottom are arguing from a more socialist point of view.