Rising Minimum Wage: Persuasive Speech

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General Purpose:

To persuade

Specific Purpose:

To convince my audience that raising the minimum wage is not a good idea.

Central Idea:

Increasing the minimum wage is not beneficial to the economy.

Introduction

I. Lately a popular source of debate has been the topic of minimum wage. Although there are many who will argue raising the minimum wage will be beneficial to those who are suffering from poverty, there are many statistics and facts that prove otherwise.

II. Raising the minimum wage could actually be more detrimental to the job market than it could be helpful to the poor.

III. An increase in minimum wage will ultimately have a drastic effect on the nation’s economy as a whole, affecting more people than it would help.

Transition-

Body

I. The idea of increasing the minimum wage has been proposed as a way to decrease the number of people suffering from poverty, however, there are many numbers that prove otherwise.

A. Only 11% of people that would be affected by an increase in the minimum wage are below the poverty line.
B. Most workers who earn minimum wage are actually from families earning above the median income of $50,000.
C. 85% of all minimum wage workers are either teens that live with their parents, adults living alone, or adults who have spouses that also work.
D. 80% do not have kids.
E. The majority of these workers will receive a raise between a month and a year after being hired.
F. Roughly 60% of those in poverty don’t even work.

Transition- According to Forbes, the only thing raising the minimum wage will do is make it harder for that 60% to get a job if they ever decide to get one.

II. It all comes down to the simple Law of Demand: the higher the price of anything, the less the demand with be for that particular thing. In this case, the ‘thing’ we are talking about is jobs.

A. In July 2009, Congress raised the minimum wage by 10.6%. In the 6 months following, 600,000 teens’ jobs were lost.
B. The higher wages employers are required to pay their workers, the fewer workers they are going to be able to have.
C. “Firms cannot pay a worker more than the value the worker brings to the firm.” (Forbes)

Transition- In addition to completely destroying the job market, raising the minimum raise could be detrimental to our nation’s economy.

III. An increase in minimum wage could cause inflation and have other negative effects on the economy.

A. The state of Michigan raise the minimum wage from $7.40 to $8.15, just 75 cents, and we immediately saw the effects in pricing at some of our everyday business locations.
B. McDonald’s alone made many major price changes due to the increase in the minimum wage. Pops are no longer just a dollar, and many of the items on the dollar menu, such as the McDouble, are now roughly a dollar more.
C. Increasing the minimum wage for entry-level jobs will eliminate many of those jobs as well as eliminate the incentive to advance beyond those jobs.

Transition- Overall, an increase in the minimum wage is more likely to cause more bad than good.

Conclusion

I. Many argue that raising the minimum wage will help those in poverty, however in all reality it is actually a terrible idea.

A. Studies and statistics prove that an increase in minimum wage will not benefit those in poverty.
B. Raising the minimum wage would cause a loss of many of those jobs, so an increase will likely hurt more people than help them.
C. An increase in minimum wage will also cause inflation, making the standard of living in the country to increase substantially, hurting the lower and middle classes drastically.

II. When it comes down to the cold, hard facts, an increase in the minimum wage is not the way to go in trying to better our economy, as it will cause more problems than it is intended to fix.

Works Cited

Dunkelberg, William. ‘Why Raising The Minimum Wage Kills Jobs.’ Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 31 Dec. 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.
O’Leary, Lizzie. ‘Raising the Minimum Wage: Good Idea or Bad Idea?’ Marketplace.org. N.p., 04 Apr. 2014. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.
Ponnuru, Ramesh. ‘Raising the Minimum Wage Is Still a Bad Idea.’ BloombergView.com. BloombergView, 18 Feb. 2014. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.
Stoll, Ira. ‘9 Reasons Why Raising the Minimum Wage Is a Terrible Idea.’ Reason.com. N.p., 03 Mar. 2014. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.
’15 Reasons Raising Minimum Wage Is Bad.’ Republican Reader. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.