Foundation Briefs

Foundation Briefs Advanced Level January/February Brief

Resolved: Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.

Jan/Feb 2015 Table of Contents

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Table of Contents Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 1!

Definitions............................................................................................................................................................... 8!

Definition of living wage. BG .................................................................................................................... 8!

Living wage + its implications defined. LSS. ............................................................................................. 8!

Living wage defined. LZ. ............................................................................................................................ 8!

Living wage defined. LZ. ............................................................................................................................ 9!

Living wage is distinct from the minimum wage. LZ. ............................................................................... 9!

Living Wage (as a movement) defined. LSS. ........................................................................................... 10!

Living wage is calculated by looking at seven key expenditures. LSS. ................................................... 10!

Living wage is distinct from minimum wage. LSS. ................................................................................. 11!

Topic Analysis ...................................................................................................................................................... 12!

Laying the Foundation .......................................................................................................................................... 25!

A brief history of the federal minimum wage. LZ. ................................................................................... 25!

Living wage movement based on family wage campaigns. LSS. ............................................................. 26!

There are two major proposals to raise the minimum wage considered by lawmakers. LZ. .................... 26!

A closer examination of the $10.10 option. LZ. ....................................................................................... 26!

A closer examination of the $9.00 option. LZ. ......................................................................................... 27!

A brief history of minimum wage laws in the world. LZ. ........................................................................ 27!

Key features of a minimum wage. LZ. ..................................................................................................... 28!

Privatization is what prompted increased living wage laws. LZ. ............................................................. 29!

Recognition that the minimum wage cant support families drives living wage laws. LZ. ..................... 29!

Three reasons for rise of living wage movement. LSS. ............................................................................ 30!

History of national minimum wage in the UK. LSS ................................................................................. 30!

Over 1.2 million workers paid below national minimum wage prior to introduction. LSS ..................... 31!

Discrepancies in UK earning statistics troublesome for economic institutions. LSS. .............................. 31!



Living wage proposal in North Carolina proposed $14.63 an hour. LSS. ................................................ 32!

Living wage proposal in Minnesota proposed $15.37 an hour. LSS. ....................................................... 33!

Living wage proposal in Tennessee proposed $11.15 an hour. LSS. ....................................................... 33!

Minimum wage insufficient, sparking the living wage movement. LSS. ................................................. 34!

Affirmative Evidence ............................................................................................................................................ 35!

Polls .................................................................................................................................................................. 36!

Across all groups, including the rich and the conservatives, people support raising the national minimum wage. LZ. .................................................................................................................................................. 36!

Even small business owners agree, the ones most affected by an increase in the minimum wage. LZ. . 36!

Very few people want to eliminate the minimum wage. LZ. ................................................................... 38!

Americans are currently disengaged form their jobs costing the U.S. as much $550 billion. Polls prove. BG ............................................................................................................................................................. 38!

Economy ........................................................................................................................................................... 39!

An analysis of states that raised the minimum wage compared to states that didnt shows that states with a higher minimum wage had higher economic growth. LZ. ..................................................................... 39!

A nonpartisan analysis of the issue shows that nearly all economic indicators increased when the minimum wage was increased. LZ. .......................................................................................................... 39!

An increase in the minimum wage would not significantly affect the federal budget. LZ. ...................... 41!

The effects of a $9.00 minimum wage. LZ. .............................................................................................. 42!

The effects of a $10.10 option. LZ. .......................................................................................................... 43!

Raising the minimum wage increases the employment of higher wage workers. LZ. ............................. 44!

Low wage workers are more likely to spend than any other income group. LZ. ..................................... 44!

An increase in the minimum wage would provide an additional $35 billion to the economy. LZ. .......... 45!

Implementing a living wage actually benefits companies thus helping the economy. BG ...................... 46!

Raising wages helps local businesses and the local economy. BG ........................................................... 46!

Raising wages helps scrupulous businesses compete against those that cut corners in order to decrease costs. BG ................................................................................................................................................... 47!

Minimum wage is not sufficient. Only living wage can improve the lives of the common American. BG................................................................................................................................................................... 48!



Minimum wage is not sufficient. More evidence proves that minimum wage cannot keep up with inflation. BG ............................................................................................................................................. 48!

Minimum wage is not sufficient. Even more evidence proves. BG ......................................................... 49!

Living wage laws benefit working families with few or no negative effects of the economy at large. BG................................................................................................................................................................... 49!

More studies prove that living wages help the economy at large by raising productivity. BG ................ 51!

NMW conducive to employment retention. LSS. ..................................................................................... 52!

NMW has potential to alleviate poverty. LSS. ......................................................................................... 53!

Stopping Crime ................................................................................................................................................. 54!

Poverty causes violence and crime. BG .................................................................................................... 54!

The US demonstrates a good example of how poverty has empirically caused crime. BG ..................... 54!

The root cause of poverty in the United States is the lack of social benefits to help those in poverty. This demonstrates the need for a living wage. BG ........................................................................................... 55!

Minimum wage does not prevent poverty only living wage can effectively fight poverty. Galsmeier gives specific numbers on wages for multiple states. BG ........................................................................ 56!

Poverty leads to youth violence by excluding social supports. BG .......................................................... 58!

Poverty disrupts family life, thus causing more crime. BG ...................................................................... 59!

Poverty forces people to become criminals because they do not have the means to escape poverty and become productive members of society. BG ............................................................................................ 60!

Poverty is the key link to crime. Nothing else matters nearly as much. BG ............................................ 61!

Studies prove that poverty is the key link to crime. BG ........................................................................... 62!

Helps Women ................................................................................................................................................... 63!

Women are disproportionately harmed by low wages. SBH. ................................................................... 63!

Women of color are especially effected by a low wage. SBH. ................................................................. 63!

Increasing the minimum wage would help women workers. SBH. .......................................................... 64!

Those in poverty are mostly women and children. SBH. ......................................................................... 65!

Raising the minimum wage is a way to get women out of poverty and help increase their pay. SBH. ... 66!

Raising the minimum wage would benefit women. LZ. ........................................................................... 67!

NMW benefits women. LSS. .................................................................................................................... 67!



Negative Evidence ................................................................................................................................................ 68!

Employers Rights ............................................................................................................................................ 69!

Minimum wage laws are immoral because they coerce employers. LZ. .................................................. 69!

Minimum wage laws just enforce moral outsourcing. LZ. ....................................................................... 70!

There is no moral obligation to pay more than is justly owed. LZ. .......................................................... 71!

We are saddling the employers with something that isnt their responsibility. LZ. ................................. 71!

If we as a society are demanding minimum standards, then society should pay, not the employers. LZ. 72!

NMW ineffective due to employer backlash. LSS. .................................................................................. 73!

Employees Rights ............................................................................................................................................ 74!

Employees should be able to bargain freely without the government. LZ. .............................................. 74!

It is better for employees to be able to negotiate freely without the government. LZ. ............................. 74!

Governments intervening in the market means less productivity. LZ. ..................................................... 75!

In minority of case, NMW was secured for workers. LSS. ...................................................................... 75!

Confidentiality breaches on behalf of government hurts workers. LSS. .................................................. 75!

Effects of confidentiality breaches are severe. LSS. ................................................................................. 76!

Confidentiality is important for employees. LSS. .................................................................................... 76!

Economy ........................................................................................................................................................... 77!

The best studies show that increasing the minimum wage hurts employment. LZ. ................................. 77!

Raising the minimum wage prevents entry level workers from getting a job. LZ. .................................. 77!

Raising the minimum wage makes it harder for inexperienced workers to find jobs. LZ. ....................... 78!

An increase in the minimum wage would cost over half a million jobs. LZ. ........................................... 78!

Increasing the minimum wage reduces employment in two ways. LZ. .................................................... 79!

An increase in the minimum wage would force costs and prices to go up. LZ. ....................................... 79!

Macroeconomic analysis shows that the economy would decline and jobs would be lost if the minimum wage was increased. LZ. ........................................................................................................................... 80!

An increase in the minimum wage would cost many jobs. LZ. ................................................................ 80!

An increase in the minimum wage would not help most people in poverty. LZ. ..................................... 81!

Living wage creates a wage floor which harms the economy. BG ........................................................... 81!



Small businesses are harmed in the process because price increases in wage to workers disincentives actual start ups. SBH. ................................................................................................................................ 82!

UK NMW only impacted 6-7% of workers. LSS. .................................................................................... 82!

Living wages campaign suffers same ills as predecessors; destined to fail. LSS. .................................... 83!

Government Coercion Bad ............................................................................................................................... 84!

Even if raising the minimum wage is moral, having the government force it is wrong. LZ. ................... 84!

Wage Slavery/Capitalism Kritik ....................................................................................................................... 86!

Living wages normalizes the wage system and perpetuate wage slavery. This perpetuates capitalist ideologies. SBH. ....................................................................................................................................... 86!

With capitalism comes exploitation and other bad impacts. SBH. ........................................................... 88!

The way to remove this capitalist ideology is through taking sides in the ongoing class struggle. SBH. 89!

Capitalism causes a multitude of bad impacts. SBH. ............................................................................... 90!

EITC Counterplan ............................................................................................................................................. 91!

What EITC is. SBH. .................................................................................................................................. 91!

How the EITC and CDC work. SBH. ....................................................................................................... 92!

The EITC works to increase productivity, decreases how many people need welfare, etc. SBH. ........... 93!

The EITC may improve the health of infants. SBH. ................................................................................. 94!

EITC boosts childrens education. SBH. .................................................................................................. 95!

EITC boosts work effort of parents. SBH. ................................................................................................ 97!

EITC reduces poverty. SBH. .................................................................................................................... 98!

Harms Minorities/Youth ................................................................................................................................. 100!

Huge disparities in how much women of color are paid and others. SBH. ............................................ 100!

Living wage harms minorities and youth of color. It removes the chance to learn and become better in a field. SBH. .............................................................................................................................................. 100!

Black and Hispanic teens are more likely to become idle. SBH. .......................................................... 101!

Employers will look for higher skilled workers making it harder for youth to get a job. SBH. ............. 101!

For every 10% increase in the minimum wage, minority employment goes down 3.9% and youth employment 6.6%. SBH. ........................................................................................................................ 102!

If employers do not fire employees, they will increase prices. SBH. ..................................................... 102!



For every 10 % increase in the minimum wage, there will be a 4% increase in food and a .4% increase in prices overall. SBH. ................................................................................................................................ 103!

An increase in prices makes the living wage once again insufficient funds to live. SBH. .................... 103!

Universal Basic Income Counterplan ............................................................................................................. 104!

Universal basic income ends poverty. SBH. ........................................................................................... 104!

How UBI would be funded in US. SBH. ................................................................................................ 105!

3 benefits to UBI. SBH. .......................................................................................................................... 106!

UBI removes poverty and is a bargaining power for workers. SBH. .................................................... 106!

Its universality avoids a state that controls people. SBH. ..................................................................... 107!

Affirmative Counters .......................................................................................................................................... 108!

AT: Creates Jobs/Job Loss .............................................................................................................................. 109!

Removing the minimum wage actually costs many jobs. LZ. ................................................................ 109!

Economists Card and Krueger concluded that there was no loss to employment from a modest increase in wages. LZ. ........................................................................................................................................... 109!

Studies cant change peoples minds because the debate is too politically charged. LZ. ....................... 110!

Convention economic analysis doesnt work when analyzing the minimum wage. LZ. ....................... 110!

Increasing wages does not reduce employment. BG .............................................................................. 111!

A decreasing demand for labor does not necessarily mean that employees are harmed. In fact they actually get more free time. BG .............................................................................................................. 111!

Early studies prove that living wage does not decrease employment. BG ............................................. 112!

Studies prove that living wage does not decrease unemployment. BG .................................................. 113!

The only study that proves that job loss occurs is the Neumark and Adams study. However, this study is completely flawed. BG ........................................................................................................................... 114!

The CBO report overstates the loss in employment. LZ. ....................................................................... 116!

Unemployment did not increase in UK after NMW introduction. LSS. ................................................ 117!

AT: Private Charities ...................................................................................................................................... 118!

A government should guarantee the minimum wage, not private charities. LZ. .................................... 118!

AT: Living Wage Costs Gov $ ....................................................................................................................... 120!

A living wage does not increase government contracts. BG .................................................................. 120!



A living wage does not increase government contracts. BG .................................................................. 121!

A living wage does not hurt the governments budget. BG ..................................................................... 121!

A living wage does not increase the costs for the government. BG ....................................................... 122!

AT: Government Interference ......................................................................................................................... 123!

Scaling punishment for now following NMW ensures businesses are not ostracized by government. LSS. ......................................................................................................................................................... 123!

In UK, government plays secondary role in enforcing NMW. LSS. ...................................................... 123!

Poor employer pay records at fault for not enforcing NMW, not government. LSS. ............................. 124!

Publicity key reason NMW can be ineffective; not government interference. LSS. .............................. 124!

NMW awareness programs can increase effectiveness, thus proving role of government vital. LSS. .. 125!

Awareness of rights key to helping workers; done through government. LSS. ..................................... 125!

AT: EITC Counterplan ................................................................................................................................... 126!

The minimum wage and EITC are designed to work together. LZ. ....................................................... 126!

Negative Counters ............................................................................................................................................... 128!

AT: Helps Women/Minorities ....................................................................................................................... 129!

Unless the minimum wage is increased by $5, it wont help women. LZ. ............................................. 129!

Increasing the minimum wage hurts African Americans. LZ. ................................................................ 130!

AT: Rawls ....................................................................................................................................................... 131!

Rawls wouldve supported a guaranteed social minimum rather than a minimum wage. LZ. ............... 131!

Rawls implied that tax-and-transfer policies are better than a minimum wage. LZ. .............................. 132!

Cases ................................................................................................................................................................... 133!

Jan/Feb 2015 Definitions


Definitions Definition of living wage. BG

Investopedia. Living Wage. 2014. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/living_wage.asp.

Investopedia is a website owned by Forbes Digital. It is focused on teaching people the basics of Finance.

A theoretical wage level that allows the earner to afford adequate shelter, food and the other necessities of life. The living wage should be substantial enough to ensure that no more than 30% of it needs to be spent on housing. The goal of the living wage is to allow employees to earn enough income for a satisfactory standard of living.

Living wage + its implications defined. LSS. Ciscel, David H. "The Living Wage Movement: Building a Political Link from Market

Wages to Social Institutions." Journal of Economic Issues XXXIV.2 (2000): 527-35. He is a professor of Economics at the University of Memphis.

The living wage is usually defined as a self-sufficiency income, i.e., the level of income necessary for a given family type to become independent of welfare or other public subsidies. The political campaign for a living wage emphasizes passing local ordinances that call for a certain minimum hourly wage plus a reasonable benefit package. That living wage is supposed to be paid by the municipality's agencies, plus the city is supposed to only contract with private firms that pay a living wage. The idea is to start a "cluster" of better paying jobs in the service economy, so that either individual firms or the marketplace as a whole will follow the initial thrust.

Living wage defined. LZ. Gertner, Jon, Contributing Writer for the Magazine. "What Is a Living Wage?" The New

York Times. The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2006. Web. 01 Dec. 2014. .

By dint of its piecemeal, localized progress, the modern living-wage movement has grown without fanfare; one reason is that until recently, most of the past decade's wage laws, like Baltimore's, have been narrow in scope and modest in effect. Strictly speaking, a "living wage" law has typically required that any company



receiving city contracts, and thus taxpayers' money, must pay its workers a wage far above the federal minimum, usually between $9 and $11 an hour. These regulations often apply to employees at companies to which municipalities have outsourced tasks like garbage collection, security services and home health care. Low-wage workers in the private sector - in restaurants, hotels, retail stores or the like - have been unaffected. Their pay stays the same.

Living wage defined. LZ. Living Wage Laws: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions. AFL-CIO Department of

Public Policy. October 2000. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=laborunions

Living wage laws are measures that set specific wage rates for discrete groups of workers. They differ from state and federal minimum wage laws both in the wage level they require and in coverage. Federal and state minimum wage laws prescribe lower wage levels than living wage laws but cover virtually all employers. Living wage laws set much higher wage rates but cover a much narrower and smaller group of employers; they generally apply to companies that have service contracts with the city or county government or those that receive certain forms of financial assistance from the government.

Living wage is distinct from the minimum wage. LZ. Living Wage Laws: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions. AFL-CIO Department of

Public Policy. October 2000. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=laborunions

Unlike the federal minimum wage, which produces earnings below the poverty level, a living wage is a pay rate designed to ensure that covered workers earn wages at or above the poverty line. Though living wage ordinances vary in their wage rates, the level they typically set is the hourly wage a full-time, year-round worker must earn to bring a family of four out of poverty. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2000 poverty guideline for a family of four was $17,050. To bring a family of four above this poverty line, a full-time, year-round worker would need to earn an hourly wage of $8.20. Although a living wage is still a low wage, the extra disposable income available to a full-time living wage worker compared with a full-time minimum wage worker is substantial. According to calculations by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a worker who has two children and who works full-time, year-round at the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has a total net income of $13,781 (after taking into account payroll taxes and the Earned Income Tax Credit). At an hourly wage of $8.20, that same worker with two children would have a total income of $18,720. The fulltime worker earning the living wage has nearly $5,000 more than a minimum wage worker to spend on education, health care and other necessities of daily life.



Living Wage (as a movement) defined. LSS. Ciscel, David H. "The Living Wage Movement: Building a Political Link from Market


The living wage is an idea that is at the heart of a new political strategy to raise real wages in the United States. It is focused on those workers who have been left behind in the economic boom of the 1990s. The sales, clerical, operative, and service jobs in the service-producing economy have had stagnant or falling wages. These jobs are often filled by a predominantly female and disproportionately minority work force.

In many metropolitan areas, trade unions and their allies are working to get living wage ordinances passed. The living wage movement has grown out of recent trade union organizing and welfare reform resistance movements. Generally, these groups argue that there is a "wage gap" between the wages typically paid to semiskilled and unskilled workers in a service-based economy and the basic--self-sufficient or unsubsidized--income required to provide for a family.

Living wage is calculated by looking at seven key expenditures. LSS. Ciscel, David H. "The Living Wage Movement: Building a Political Link from Market


The living wage is estimated by calculating the expenditures of a typical family in seven key categories of consumer expenditures, plus necessary taxes paid by the family. Briefly, the seven expenditure categories that make up the living wage are

Housing and Utilities. This calculation comprises the monthly rent and utilities on an apartment or home that meets minimum standards of decency. The rent is based on the 1998 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) fair market rents for the Memphis Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)---$395 per month for a one-bedroom and $465 per month for a two-bedroom apartment.

A family with one child is assumed to have a pre-school child who attends day care all year. A family with two children is assumed to have one pre-school child and one school-age child. The school-age child uses a day care facility during vacations and summers.

Child Care. The cost of child care is calculated for families having young children, using the 75th percentile of the Tennessee Department of Human Services [1997] estimates of the cost of child care: $3,854 for one child fulltime in child care.



Food. Typically, the living wage campaigns use the U.S. Department of Agriculture's [1997] Low-Cost Food Plan---a nutritionally better plan than the Thrifty Food Plan used to calculate official poverty thresholds.

Transportation. Since Memphis, like most American cities, has a very weak public transportation system, the living wage assumes that the adults will drive a car to work. The cost of running a car for work and errands is $1,887 for a one adult-worker family and $2,516 for a two adult-worker family.

Medical Care. The cost of medical care is the cost of insurance and deductibles in the TennCare (Medicaid) insurance program for Tennessee [Bureau of TennCare 1999].

Clothing and Personal Care. Decent clothing and grooming products are real necessities for holding a job and for regular social contacts at churches, schools, and community organizations.

Taxes. The taxes include the Tennessee sales tax for Memphis on food, clothing, and personal products, plus Social Security taxes and income taxes. The federal income tax is adjusted for the approximate impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Living wage is distinct from minimum wage. LSS. Ciscel, David H. "The Living Wage Movement: Building a Political Link from Market


The poverty guidelines were developed in the 1960s as a simple method for calculating the poverty threshold. They are based on the Thirty Food Plan of Department of Agriculture. Since food represented about a third of worker's budget in those years, the food plan was multiplied by three to cover other expenses. Each year the poverty threshold is updated for inflationary changes. The 1999 poverty guidelines [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1999] provide a measure of the break between poverty and the beginning of self-sufficiency: $11,060 for a family of two, $13,880 for a family of three, and $16,700 for a family of four.

A living wage in terms of self-sufficiency requires approximately twice the poverty income level. A poverty threshold income requires public subsidies, or it provides a very low standard of living.

Jan/Feb 2015 Topic Analysis


Topic Analysis Lawrence Zhou

This topic was the camp topic at a couple major camps, such as UNT, which means that a lot of debaters will have a lot of prep over this topic already. This topic has the potential to address so many relevant issues within todays society and has tons of topic literature on both sides. It is politically relevant, with bills concerning living wage being debated in the House and Senate recently, socially relevant, with huge discussions and debates by individuals and massive think tanks, philosophically relevant, with huge swaths of literature on both sides of the issue. And it has arguments for every type of debater: philosophical arguments, policy/LARP arguments, arguments about economic theories, and access to some critical argumentation. This topic analysis will focus mainly on stock arguments/positions.

Definitions

What is a living wage? Well, according to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/living%20wage), a living wage is: an amount of money you are paid for a job that is large enough to provide you with the basic things (such as food and shelter) needed to live an acceptable life. This document from The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations tries to define a living wage by comparing it to the federal minimum wage.

Living Wage Laws: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions. AFL-CIO Department of Public Policy. October 2000. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=laborunions

Living wage laws are measures that set specific wage rates for discrete groups of workers. They differ from state and federal minimum wage laws both in the wage level they require and in coverage. Federal and state minimum wage laws prescribe lower wage levels than living wage laws but cover virtually all employers. Living wage laws set much higher wage rates but cover a much narrower and smaller group of employers; they generally apply to companies that have service contracts with the city or county government or those that receive certain forms of financial assistance from the government.

But that definition doesnt really explain why a living wage is really needed as a distinct wage mandate. I mean, why doesnt the minimum wage cover it all?




The minimum wage is no longer a family-supporting wage. In the past, the minimum wage provided enough income to lift a family of three out of poverty. During the 1960s and 1970s, the annual earnings of a full-time, year-round minimum wage worker roughly equaled the poverty level for a family of three. The minimum wage, however, remained unchanged at $3.35 an hour from 1981 until April 1990, while the cost of living rose steadily; thus, minimum wage earnings slipped significantly below the poverty level. Recent increases have not restored all the lost value. Today, full-time, year-round minimum wage earnings are nearly 20 percent below the poverty level for a family of three. Because the minimum wage no longer supports families, we need to rely on an arsenal of additional strategiesincluding policies using the governments power of the purseto raise wages for workers at the bottom.

So, people have begun proposing a living wage, that actually helps people above the poverty level.


Unlike the federal minimum wage, which produces earnings below the poverty level, a living wage is a pay rate designed to ensure that covered workers earn wages at or above the poverty line. Though living wage ordinances vary in their wage rates, the level they typically set is the hourly wage a full-time, year-round worker must earn to bring a family of four out of poverty. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2000 poverty guideline for a family of four was $17,050. To bring a family of four above this poverty line, a full-time, year-round worker would need to earn an hourly wage of $8.20. Although a living wage is still a low wage, the extra disposable income available to a full-time living wage worker compared with a full-time minimum wage worker is substantial. According to calculations by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a worker who has two children and who works full-time, year-round at the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has a total net income of $13,781 (after taking into account payroll taxes and the Earned Income Tax Credit). At an hourly wage of $8.20, that same worker with two children would have a total income of $18,720. The fulltime worker earning the living wage has nearly $5,000 more than a minimum wage worker to spend on education, health care and other necessities of daily life.

Obviously, the above source is a bit biased as it really wants a living wage, and it is a bit outdated, but it probably answers the question the best. The living is exactly what it sounds like: its a wage that allows someone to live according to standards considered basic, and it is distinct from the minimum wage because the minimum wage doesnt necessarily guarantee that the wage will be sufficient to sustain.

Now lets talk about current debates about living wage. The most relevant issue in todays debate about the living wage is to merely adjust the current minimum wage to a higher wage. Today, in the United States, the



most relevant piece of legislation is The Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 1010), a piece of legislation that Representative George Miller drafted in 2013. The following describes what the act entails.

The Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 1010). Committee on Education and the Workforce. Democrats. http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/issue/fair-minimum-wage-act

It has been seven years since minimum wage workers saw an increase in their paycheck. Passed by a Democratic Congress in 2007, this increase gave as many as 13 million workers a much needed pay raise after a decade stuck at $5.15 per hour. Despite this, the real value of the minimum wage today buys less than it did in 1956. In addition, workers who rely on tips havent seen an increase in their wages since 1991. The required pay for tipped workers, excluding tips, has been stuck at a paltry $2.13 per hour for 21 years. And, the federal minimum wage doesnt automatically rise with inflation. Its time to raise the minimum wage. The Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 1010) will increase the minimum wage in three steps, from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour. The rate will then be indexed to inflation each year thereafter. In addition, the legislation will increase the required cash wage for tipped workers in annual 85 cent increases, from todays $2.13 per hour until the tip credit reaches 70 percent of the regular minimum wage.

This is probably the most relevant example relating to the living wage within todays society and gives a good idea of how this debate plays out in Washington. Doing additional research on various pieces of legislation from different states will help develop a better understanding of what the living wage looks like in the real world.

Affirmative

The affirmative has a fairly compelling thesis and can rely on a couple of different avenues to affirm.

Rights/Dignity

This is probably the most intuitive argument and argues that the minimum/living wage is necessary to protect the dignity of the workers.

Guy Davidov [Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem]. A Purposive Interpretation of the National Minimum Wage Act (2009). Modern Law Review, Vol. 72, pp. 581-606, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1549679

A second major justification for minimum wage laws relies on the concept of dignity. Respect for the dignity of the worker as a human being dictates that human labour should not be sold for less than a certain minimum. The idea that labour should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce62 represents a long-standing understanding that labour power cannot be separated from the



self. Since human beings are not things and cannot be bought and sold as such, neither can their labour power.63 This does not mean that we cannot or should not sell our labour power for a price, but it does mean that some limitations are necessary, and labour and employment regulations accordingly try to protect our health and our rights at work.64 Some of these regulations are designed to ensure respect for our dignity as human beings; anti-discrimination laws and limitations on dismissals, for example, have been explained on this basis.65 The minimum wage can be seen in a similar light.

One way that it protects rights/dignity, is that it protects the people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.

Roos, Dave. "How Minimum Wage Works" 18 May 2009. HowStuffWorks.com. 03 December 2014.

The most common argument in support of the minimum wage is that it protects the workers at the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder. These workers, many of whom represent marginalized groups (women, minorities, youth workers, the disabled, and so on), simply don't have the bargaining power to fight for a minimum living wage without government intervention.

This is a highly intuitive argument that many people believe in and thus, represents an effective argument to pull on the heartstrings of the judges. However, a lot of these arguments about protecting the dignity of employees seem to implicitly rest on the empirical fact that it actually does protect these people, but relies on a separate empirical claim. This is especially important if the negative brings up strong attacks about how it hurts the economy. If the negative wins these arguments, they can also prove how the living wage doesnt really protect dignity. This means that affirmatives taking this position do also have to be prepared to defend economic arguments as well.

Economy

There are a lot of different economy arguments that debaters can make about why a living wage is good for the economy. I wont cover all of them, because there are too many to cover, but Ill cover a couple of the more common arguments.

A pretty common argument is that increasing the minimum wage will boost the economy.

David Cooper [joined the Economic Policy Institute in July 2011. He conducts national and state-level research on a variety of issues, including employment and unemployment, poverty, the minimum wage, and wage and income trends. He also provides support to the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) on data-related inquiries and quantitative analyses. David has been interviewed and cited for his research on the minimum wage, poverty, and U.S. economic trends by local and national media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, CNBC, and NPR. His



graduate research focused on international development policy and intergenerational social mobility. He has a masters in public policy from Georgetown University]. Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 Would Lift Wages For Millions and Provide a Modest Economic Boost. Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper. December 19, 2013. Briefing Paper #371. http://s1.epi.org/files/2014/EPI-1010-minimum-wage.pdf

Economists generally agree that low-wage workers are more likely than any other income group to spend any additional earnings they receive, largely because they must in order to meet their basic needs. Higher-income individuals, corporations, and beneficiaries of corporate profits are more likely to save at least a portion of any additional income. Thus, in a period of depressed consumer demand, raising the minimum wage can provide a modest boost to overall economic activity because it shifts income to workers who are very likely to spend it immediately. Indeed, recent research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago finds that raising the federal minimum wage to $10 could increase U.S. GDP by up to 0.3 percentage points in the near term3 (Aaronson and French 2013).

Our research shows that raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 would provide an additional $35 billion in wages over the phase-in period to directly and indirectly affected workers, who are likely to then spend that additional income. This projected rise in consumer spending would provide a modest boost to U.S. GDP, even after accounting for the increased labor cost to businesses and the potential for small price increases for consumers. Using standard fiscal multipliers, we would expect that increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 would generate a net increase in economic activity of $22.1 billion over the phase-in period. This additional GDP would support roughly 85,000 new jobs.4 As shown in Appendix Table 1, increasing the federal minimum wage would generate jobs in every state. (As noted previously, detailed state-level demographic information on each states affected workers is available at http://www.epi.org/files/2013/minimum-wage-state-tables.pdf.) Appendix Table 2 details the economic effects of each of the three incremental increases.

An increase in the minimum wage would also probably help make employees more productive.

Boushey, Heather, Executive Director and Chief Economist, Washington Center for Equitable Growth. "Understanding How Raising the Federal Minimum Wage Affects Income Inequality and Economic Growth - Washington Center for Equitable Growth." Washington Center for Equitable Growth. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. .

One reason that employment has not been shown to fall due to raising the minimum wage is because higher wages can make workers more productive and therefore more valuable to their employer. Economists call this the efficiency wages theory. There is an extensive literature on efficiency wage



theory, with notable contributions Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and George Akerlof, which suggest that paying more than the market-clearing wage can make firms more productive.

As the White House pointed out last week, higher wages can boost productivity, increase morale, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. Here are just two academic studies that prove these points. John Schmitt, a Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, finds empirical economics research suggesting efficiency gains. And in a 2011 study, Georgia State University economists Barry Hirsch and Bruce Kaufman, along with Tetyana Zelenska from Innovations for Poverty Action, examined the effect of a federal increase in the minimum wage on 81 restaurants in Georgia and Alabama. In their survey, managers reported that they could identify possible non-wage savings and productivity improvements in response to the minimum-wage regulations. It is possible that lower costs stemming from these changes could outweigh the costs of paying a higher minimum wage.

Finally, an increase in the minimum wage would decrease turnover.


In addition, its possible that a higher minimum wage could make staying in ones job more attractive and thus reduce turnover costs. A 2013 working paper by UMass-Amherst economist Arindrajit Dube, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill economist William Lester, and UC-Berkeley economist Michael Reich finds that a higher minimum wage leads to fewer so called hires and separations, or worker turnover. Other empirical studies suggesting that a higher minimum wageor a living wage covering basic needscan reduce labor turnover include studies of workers in San Francisco(including airport and homecare workers) and Los Angeles. Lower turnover costs could potentially allow businesses to overcome the increased cost of paying a higher wage.

There are tons of other economic arguments, such as arguing that it boosts employee spending power and helps familys better support their children among others. All of these stem from the very intuitive idea that increasing the minimum wage gives people more money so they can live a better life.

From the economy arguments, a lot of different advantages can be crafted for why improving the economy is a good thing. However, most major utilitarian arguments rely on winning that a living wage is good for the economy. It is, in other words, the internal link, for most other advantages in the round. The economy is good because it helps people, gives people higher standards of living, makes people more happy, stops war, etc. Besides, very few people would ever argue that boosting the economy is a bad thing. In order to be successful



with this position, affirmatives will have to do a lot of preparation work that proves that the economy positions flow affirmative. They will have to be prepared to answer common objections to their positions as well as a variety of negative disadvantages towards the economy. Smart negatives will be able to take small issues and make them huge deals that devastate the affirmative. To be prepared to win the economy position will require massive amounts of preparation work.

Equality

Equality based positions are sometimes employed to justify raising the minimum wage to a living wage. These would most likely take the form of a more Rawlsian position that argues for protecting the least advantaged.

One common position argues that a living wage would overall reduce economic inequality, and thus reduce inequalities overall. One major source of inequality is the fact that so many people are on the low end of society, and marginalized by pay.


Economists have found that the declining inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage had a considerable effect on wage inequality for those workers in the bottom half of the wage distribution. A 1996 paper by economists John DiNardo, of the University of Michigan, Nicole Fortin, of the University of British Columbia, and Thomas Lemieux, also of the University of British Columbia, found that the decrease in the minimum wage from 1979 to 1988 had a considerable effect on the wage distribution. They found the decline over that time could explain up to 25 percent of the change in the standard deviation in the logarithm of male wages and up to 30 percent for female wages. In plain English, this means the decline in the minimum wage explained up to a fourth of increasing wage inequality for men and up to three-tenths of increase wage inequality for women.

However, most people dont really think that an increase in the minimum wage would actually help economic inequality, primarily because it doesnt really do much and it fails to address many of the root causes of economic inequality, and even proponents do not tout the benefit of economic inequality as one of the primarily motivations for increasing the minimum wage.

Another position argues that a living wage would better assist in gender inequalities.



David Cooper [joined the Economic Policy Institute in July 2011. He conducts national and state-level research on a variety of issues, including employment and unemployment, poverty, the minimum wage, and wage and income trends. He also provides support to the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) on data-related inquiries and quantitative analyses. He has a masters in public policy from Georgetown University]. Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 Would Lift Wages For Millions and Provide a Modest Economic Boost. Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper. December 19, 2013. Briefing Paper #371. http://s1.epi.org/files/2014/EPI-1010-minimum-wage.pdf

While raising the minimum wage would benefit both men and women, it would disproportionately affect women. As depicted in Figure E, women account for 49.2 percent of total U.S. employment, yet comprise 55.0 percent of the workers whose incomes would rise by increasing the minimum wage to $10.10. The share of those affected who are women varies somewhat by state, from a low of 47.7 percent in California to a high of 63.3 percent in Mississippi.

This is definitely an appealing argument, but there definitely remains good arguments against it. One particularly common response to this argument is that women are more likely to lose their jobs as a result of an increase in the minimum wage, which once again means that in order to win on this argument, affirmatives are still going to have to prepared to argue the economic perspective of the living wage.

An increase in the minimum wage would also benefit people who are older. A common mistake is to assume that most minimum wage employees are teenagers, but many are older citizens that could benefit from an increase in the minimum wage.

David Cooper [joined the Economic Policy Institute in July 2011. He conducts national and state-level research on a variety of issues, including employment and unemployment, poverty, the minimum wage, and wage and income trends. He also provides support to the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) on data-related inquiries and quantitative analyses. He has a masters in public policy from Georgetown University]. Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 Would Lift Wages For Millions and Provide a Modest Economic Boost. Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper. December 19, 2013. Briefing Paper #371. http://s1.epi.org/files/2014/EPI-1010-minimum-wage.pdf

Perhaps the most common incorrect perception of low-wage workers is that they are largely teenagers and almost entirely young people. While there certainly are a number of low-wage workers who fit this description, young workers comprise only a small fraction of the workers who would be affected by an increase to $10.10. Of the workers who would receive a raise if the minimum wage were lifted to $10.10 by 2016, only 12.5 percent are teens. In fact, of those affected, more are age 55 or older than are teenagers. The average age among affected workers is 35 years old, more than half of all affected workers are at least 30, and more than a third (34.5 percent) are at least 40.



There are certainly other arguments concerning equality, but age, gender, and economic inequality are among the most popular arguments for increasing the minimum wage into a living wage. The other popular equality argument concerns racial equality, where is focuses on the wage gap between various racial groups. All of these are excellent moral positions that can be fairly successful on a local circuit.

Remaining thoughts

There are a couple of different types of plans that affirmatives can run. The first is passing some sort of legislation that specifies exactly what amount that employees will be paid and read arguments specific to why passing that piece of legislation is good for the economy. A common affirmative type plan would be passing the Fair Minimum Wage Act. This would be fairly strategic since there is tons of literature specific to why that specific piece of legislation would be beneficial to the economy and that answers common objections to that specific piece of legislation. The downside to it is that it is by far the most common plan and that people will definitely have lots of prep against it. Other types of plan would be similar. Plan ground is wide and expansive as the affirmative can pass any sort of legislation, but all are basically the same idea.

Negative

Though a lot of the literature definitely leans towards the affirmative, there are still a decent amount of good arguments for the negative.

Libertarianism

Most moral objections to a living wage stem from a libertarian notion of morality. Most objections argue that government coercion itself is bad, and then it splits into two major branches of objections: rights of the employers, and the rights of the employees.

The rights of the employers is probably the stronger of the two positions, and something that a lot of people believe in. This position argues that government coercion of employers and forcing them to pay their employees is unjustified interference on the part of the government.

Jaana Woiceshyn [teaches business ethics and competitive strategy at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada]. Minimum Wage Laws are Immoral. Captialism Magazine. New Romanticist. 2014.04.14 http://capitalismmagazine.com/2014/04/minimum-wage-laws-immoral/

What about the argument that government-mandated minimum wages are necessary because otherwise workers would be paid less than they deserve and need to support themselves? Again, the principle is the immorality of government-initiated force. Why would government bureaucrats as opposed to individual employees or job seekers know better what an acceptable minimum wage is? If you decide that $7/hour



is an acceptable wage for the opportunity to gain work experience, to develop your skills, and to increase your employment prospects, who is the government to tell you otherwiseand to leave you unemployed because a minimum wage higher than $7/hour makes your uncompetitive? Supporting yourself at $7/hour would be challenging and would require tight budgeting and discipline and perhaps even taking on another jobuntil you have developed your skills and increased your productivity to be able to negotiate higher pay. And if your employer will not pay what you deserve, you are free to find another company that will. The government has no business in dictating voluntary trade between employers and employees. The minimum wage laws are immoral and should be abolished, leaving businesses and workers free to prosper.

This argument is by far the most common argument opposing an increase in the minimum wage/living wage. It is has a decent amount of philosophical support and is pretty common. However, because it is very common, many philosophers have taken upon to respond to this position, so in order to defend it well, it will require a lot of work to properly defend it. One of the most common responses against it is the highly intuitive idea that without a living wage, workers will be exploited, so in order to defend this position well, it will require well thought out responses to a lot of various objections.

There is a different form of this argument posited by philosopher Jason Brennan about moral outsourcing. It goes as follows:

Brennan, Jason, Assistant Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University. "Against the Living Wage/Subsidy Arguments." Bleeding Heart Libertarians. N.p., 17 July 2013. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. .

Suppose, on a reasonably competitive market, that Bobs labor is worth at most $1/hr to any potential employer. (Suppose that this is the best Bob will be able to produce at any point in his life.) At anything over $1/hr, employers would be losing money every hour Bob worked for them.

However, suppose for Bob to lead a decent, fully human life (however some left-wing activist would like to define that), he would need to make $10/hr.

Now, suppose Bob works at fast-food chain McBurger in a competitive market economy where he gets paid his marginal product, $1/hr. Suppose that he therefore qualifies for government assistance, receiving an earned income tax benefit or basic minimum income, food stamps, and the like. Many on the Left would say that the government thereby subsidizes McBurger, because McBurger pays Bob less than it takes to keep him living well, and the government pays the difference. But this presupposes that if you hire someone for, say, 40 hours a week, you owe him enough money for him to lead a decent life.



I dont understand where this presupposition comes from. If Bob is so lousy and unproductive that he can produce only $40 of value to McBurger in a 40/hr week, and if McBurger pays him for his marginal product, then this just means Bob isnt productive enough to pay his own way in this world. Bob is going to be a net drain on the worldto keep him alive will require that he consume more than he contributes. From an economic standpoint, the world is better without Bob than with him.

Isnt it more plausible to think that if theres some enforceable positive duty to provide Bob with enough stuff to lead a life, that all of us, together share this burdensome duty, rather than just Bobs employer? Why should Bobs employer, specifically, be the one that has to bear the burden and lose all this money to keep him alive (at whatever level you consider decent)? This just seems like a kind of moral outsourcing to me. Why not instead Bobs neighbors, parents, friends, or sexual partners? Bob does McBurger a service, and McBurger pays him for that service.

Basically the argument is that employers are only responsible for compensating their employees for the service that they perform. If that means that the employee performs a service worth $4, then the employer is morally responsible for paying that employee $4, no more, no less. If the employee performs a service worth $10,000,000, then the employer is morally required to pay that employee $10,000,000, no more, no less. This means that the employer is not required to pay a living wage. The employer is only required to pay just compensation. This is certainly an interesting moral argument against a living wage, and definitely an interesting twist on the traditional libertarian argument. However, it is not without its flaws. For one, its fairly difficult to say what actually counts as fair compensation. The line in the evidence that the world is better off without Bob also seems somewhat offensive, because it implies that we should only measure peoples worth based solely off of economic productivity. Overall, this is an interesting position that I think carries a strong objection to the living wage.

Economy

Even though there are a lot of good studies that show that having a living wage would benefit the economy, there is still a ton of evidence that shows that instituting a living wage would be detrimental to the economy overall. One argument is that raising the minimum wage prevents entry-level workers from getting a job.

Dorn, James A., Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. "The Minimum Wage Is Cruelest to Those Who Can't Find a Job." Cato Institute. The Cato Institute, 22 July 2013. Web. 08 Aug. 2014. .

The minimum wage is unfair to low-skilled workers with little experience because it prices them out of the labor market and prevents them from achieving the upward mobility that is the hallmark of a dynamic free-market economy. If the Fair Minimum Wage Act is passed, workers who cannot produce at least $10.10 per hour will not be able to find an entry-level job. When employers expect the wage rate



to increase by 40 percent over three years, they will take action today to substitute labor-saving methods of production for the higher-priced labor. Job growth for younger, less-skilled workers will slow, benefits will be cut, and part-time workers will take the place of full-time workers. Those adjustments will speed up if overall business conditions are expected to be weak.

The other really popular argument carried on by opponents to increasing the minimum wage is that it would cost jobs.

Miron, Jeffrey. "CBO's Minimum Wage Report." Cato Institute. The Cato Institute, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 08 Aug. 2014.

In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that raising the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 an hour would raise the incomes of low-wage workers who remain employed while lowering the incomes of low-wage workers who lose their jobs. CBOs middle estimate is that a $10.10 minimum wage would reduce total employment by about 500,000. These effects are exactly what textbook economics predicts; the question is then how policy should regard this combination of good news for some, bad news for others. On that score, the answer is obvious. A policy that alleges to help low-wage workers, yet forces half a million to lose their jobs, is hard to reconcile with any sensible view of redistribution. People with the lowest incomes are more appropriate targets of redistribution than people with higher incomes, yet the minimum wage forces more people to have zero incomes. A minimum wage is therefore loony from the get-go, even if one believes in a government safety net.

Of course, the argument that it would cost jobs is heavily empirically contested, with authors on the opposite side of the political spectrum arguing that studies have shown that increasing the minimum wage does not affect employment. In order to defend the position well, it will require that the negative be well researched into the specifics of economic theory. Without this in-depth research, these economic arguments will devolve into he said, she said arguments that go past each other.

Remaining thoughts

There are a couple of non-traditional approaches to negating this topic, but they wont be discussed here. There are a couple of critical routes to take, and there are certainly a decent variety of counterplans. Universal basic income and other supplementary programs are all popular alternatives to a living wage. They key to effectively running these counterplans well is to prove they are competitive, or better than the affirmative. A lot of counterplans are not competitive with the affirmative since they are designed to actually be used in conjunction with a living wage, so be careful there.



The biggest note I would offer towards people negating is that most affirmatives will have to rely on the fact that increasing the minimum wage to a living wage is good for the economy. This is the crucial link that almost every affirmative will rely on. If you are well prepared to answer that one question, you will be able to win most stock rounds.

Conclusion

This topic is a very interesting and relevant topic that is well discussed within the topic literature and current political discussion. I hope that these topics invite tons of clash and discussion.

Jan/Feb 2015 Laying the Foundation


Laying the Foundation A brief history of the federal minimum wage. LZ.

Congressional Budget Office. Congress of the United States. The Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income. February 2014. https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/44995-MinimumWage.pdf

The federal minimum wage was established by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) and currently applies to about two-thirds of workers in the public and private sectors. Workers whose compensation depends heavily on tips (such as waiters and bartenders) are subject to a special arrangement: The regular minimum wage applies to their compensation including tips, and a lower cash minimum wage applies to their compensation excluding tips. The FLSA also has exceptions for workers and employers of certain types, including a provision permitting employers to pay teenage workers $4.25 per hour during their first 90 days of employment.

The nominal federal minimum wage has risen over the years. The most recent changes, which took effect in July 2007, raised the minimum wage in three steps from $5.15 per hour (in nominal dollars) to $7.25 in July 2009, where it stands today.5 However, the real value of the minimum wage has both risen and fallen, as the nominal increases have subsequently been eroded by inflation (see Figure 1).6 That erosion was most pronounced between January 1981 and April 1990 and between September 1997 and July 2007each a period of nearly 10 years during which the nominal value of the minimum wage was unchanged.

Many states and localities have minimum-wage laws that apply, along with federal law, to employers within their jurisdiction. In recent years, states and localities have been particularly active in boosting their minimum wage; as of January 2014, 21 states and the District of Columbia had a minimum wage that was higher than the federal one. In 11 of those states, the minimum wage is adjusted automatically each year with inflation, and in four more, plus the District of Columbia, future increases have already been legislated. In California, for example, the minimum wage is scheduled to increase from $8.00 to $9.00 in July 2014 and to $10.00 in January 2016. Some localities also have minimum wages that are higher than the applicable state or federal minimum wage; in San Francisco, for instance, the minimum wage is $10.74 per hour. Another 20 states have minimum wages equal to the federal minimum wage (and linked to it, in some cases). In some of those states, the state laws apply to some workers and employers who are not covered by the FLSA. At the moment, about half of all workers in the United States live in states where the applicable minimum wage is more than $7.25 per hour. The applicable minimum wage in those states ranges from $7.40 to $9.32 per hour (see Figure 2).

Minimum-wage workers are sometimes thought of primarily as teenagers from nonpoor families who are working part time, but that is not the case now. Of the 5.5 million workers who earned within 25 cents of the minimum wage in 2013, three-quarters were at least 20 years old and two-fifths worked full time. Their median family income was about $30,000, CBO estimates. (Some of the family incomes within that group of workers were substantially higher or lower than that amount, in part because the number of working adults in their families varied.)



Living wage movement based on family wage campaigns. LSS.

Ciscel, David H. "The Living Wage Movement: Building a Political Link from Market Wages to Social Institutions." Journal of Economic Issues XXXIV.2 (2000): 527-35. He is a professor of Economics at the University of Memphis.

The living wage campaign harkens back to the family wage campaign in the earlier part of this century. Generally speaking, the family wage was a proposal by trade unionists that the wage should not be determined by the "market rate or the standard wage." Instead, the family wage was supposed to cover the social reproduction of the worker's family. A wage should pay not only for the work--a spot market price--but also for the costs of running a household, paying for health care, and raising children. The family wage---while still today probably widely accepted as a standard for work--was never accepted in practice by U.S. industry.

There are two major proposals to raise the minimum wage considered by lawmakers. LZ. Congressional Budget Office. Congress of the United States. The Effects of a Minimum-

Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income. February 2014. https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/44995-MinimumWage.pdf

Lawmakers have proposed various options for increasing the federal minimum wage, including several that would increase it to $10.10 per hour and subsequently index it for inflation.7 CBO has assessed the impact of such an option, as well as the impact of a smaller increase that would boost the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour and would not link future increases to inflation. (See Appendix A for information about how CBO conducted its assessments.) The options that CBO analyzed would not change other provisions of the FLSA, such as the one that applies to wages for teenage workers during their first 90 days of employment.

A closer examination of the $10.10 option. LZ. Congressional Budget Office. Congress of the United States. The Effects of a Minimum-


A $10.10 Option CBO examined an option that would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $8.20 on July 1, 2014; to $9.15 one year after that; and to $10.10 after another year. The increase in the minimum wage between 2014 and 2016 under this option would be about 40 percent, roughly the same percentage as the total increase from 2007 to 2009 but larger than several earlier increases. Each year after that, the minimum wage would rise with the consumer price index.8 In addition, this option would raise the minimum cash wage for tipped workers from $2.13 per hour to $4.90 in three steps timed to coincide with the changes in the minimum wage. Then, starting in 2017, the minimum cash wage for tipped workers would rise by 95 cents each year until it reached 70 percent of the minimum wage (which would occur in 2019, by CBOs estimate); in subsequent years, it would be tied to inflation.



A closer examination of the $9.00 option. LZ. Congressional Budget Office. Congress of the United States. The Effects of a Minimum-


CBO also examined a smaller change that would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $8.10 on July 1, 2015, and to $9.00 on July 1, 2016. The minimum cash wage for tipped workers would increase when the minimum wage increased, and by the same percentage. The increase in the minimum wage would start one year later than it would under the $10.10 option. Like previous minimum-wage increases, this one would not be indexed to subsequent inflation. This $9.00 option is more similar than the $10.10 option to minimum-wage increases studied in the economics literature in a number of respects: the size of the increase, the portion of the workforce that it would affect, and the fact that its real value would be eroded over time.

A brief history of minimum wage laws in the world. LZ.

Guy Davidov [Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem]. A Purposive Interpretation of the National Minimum Wage Act (2009). Modern Law Review, Vol. 72, pp. 581-606, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1549679

The first governments to experiment with modern minimum wage legislation, towards the end of the 19th century, were New Zealand and Australia.10 The experiments proved to be successful. The British Parliament, after a careful study of the Australian systems,11 passed a minimum wage law (though very limited in scope) in 1909.12 At the end of World War I, when the International Labour Organization (ILO) was set up following the realization that peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice,13 the provision of an adequate living wage was mentioned as one of the conditions necessary to prevent social unrest.14 Over the next few decades minimum wage laws became common around the world, initially limited to specific industries or to workers deemed to be especially vulnerable (e.g. women, children, home-workers), but gradually broadening in scope throughout the 20th century.15 The NMWA is the most recent minimum wage legislation introduced by a major economy, but such laws are still being considered and debated elsewhere.16

Minimum wage laws in advanced capitalist economies are usually general, ie not limited to specific industries or specific groups of workers, and relatively low, ie they only regulate the wages of a small percentage of the workforce, those at the bottom of the wage ladder. The discussion below is limited to this form of minimum wage legislation. The choice of a general but relatively low minimum wage necessarily relies on a particular understanding of the objective of this measure. It would be useful to start by considering and rejecting a number of possible explanations. Three objectives merit special attention; they are frequently mentioned in the literature, but in my view they cannot explain contemporary minimum wage legislation.



Key features of a minimum wage. LZ. Guy Davidov [Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem]. A Purposive

Interpretation of the National Minimum Wage Act (2009). Modern Law Review, Vol. 72, pp. 581-606, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1549679

First, minimum wage legislation is not intended to be a major instrument of macro-economic policy (as in some developing countries17), ie it is not designed to alter the entire structure of wages or to become the applicable wage for a significant number of workers.18 In advanced capitalist economies the belief is that, for the most part, wages should be set by the market (whether through collective bargaining or not19). It is only when the wage is exceptionally meagre that minimum wage laws intervene.

Second, it is misleading to describe the minimum wage as directed at reducing overall poverty. Although it may certainly help to reduce poverty among working families,20 it is only a rather negligible component of broader policies in this regard. The relatively low level of the minimum wage, and its inapplicability to those without employment, make it quite obvious that minimum wage legislation cannot be presumed to substantially reduce poverty. Moreover, if the goal had been to reduce poverty, a minimum wage law would need an additional accompanying justification to explain why the burden of this expense is placed on employers.21 Critics of the minimum wage that bemoan its record in reducing poverty22 or suggest a set of other policies that can better achieve this goal23 are, therefore, misguided. It is simply not the intention of minimum wage laws at least not their main intention to reduce general poverty.24

Third, current minimum wage laws are not limited in their purpose to the advancement of efficiency, or the correction of market failures, as was perhaps the case with some of the early laws at the beginning of the 20th century.25 A minimum wage set as a single rate (at most with one or two varying rates for specific groups) is much too crude to capture instances of market failure in numerous different settings. As a consequence, minimum wage legislation does both too much and too little in a significant number of cases. This cannot be presumed to be the idea of minimum wage laws.26



Privatization is what prompted increased living wage laws. LZ. A Critical Examination of Living Wage Law Case in Point, Baltimore, Maryland Pat

Stevenson. Collaborative MSW Program. University of Wisconsin Oshkosh/University of Wisconsin Green Bay. Author Note. Assignment for Social Work 728: Advanced Social Welfare Policy Analysis. Section I, Instructor Dr. Carol A. Hand. Fall 2010

A revived interest in living wage legislation began taking shape in the early 1990s, prompted mainly by the increasingly frequent practice of privatization. Government jobs that, at one time, had provided steady, full-time work with adequate pay and benefits were being turned over to the private sector where low pay, a lack of benefits, and part-time or seasonal work was becoming standard (Niedt, Ruiters, Wise, & Schoenberger, 1999). A new coalition, marked by collaboration among parties with disparate interests and motivations, began to emerge. According to Brenner and Luce (2005), community groups were often interested in addressing economic inequality and extreme poverty. Faith-based groups saw the living wage movement as an opportunity to put their faith into practice and to foster social justice. Unions participated in the movement to organize new workers, build coalitions with new partners, and discourage the out-sourcing of public jobs.

Recognition that the minimum wage cant support families drives living wage laws. LZ.

A Critical Examination of Living Wage Law Case in Point, Baltimore, Maryland Pat Stevenson. Collaborative MSW Program. University of Wisconsin Oshkosh/University of Wisconsin Green Bay. Author Note. Assignment for Social Work 728: Advanced Social Welfare Policy Analysis. Section I, Instructor Dr. Carol A. Hand. Fall 2010

Driving the living wage movement is the recognition that fulltime workers are no longer able to support their families when earning the minimum wage. At the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, a person working fulltime grosses only $15,080 per year. While this comes in at slightly above 100% of the Federal poverty guideline for a household of one, it brings a family of four to only 68% of the 2010 Federal poverty level. Using the Federal governments figure of $22,050 as 100% of poverty for a family of four, a person would need to earn $10.60 per hour in order to earn poverty level wages fully 32% more than the current minimum wage (Foundation for Health Coverage Education, n.d.).



Three reasons for rise of living wage movement. LSS. Ciscel, David H. "The Living Wage Movement: Building a Political Link from Market


There are, at least, three political reasons for the appearance of the living wage. campaigns. First, real wages and salaries for many workers have been stagnant as real per capita income has risen. Second, many municipalities are outsourcing work done in the past by civil servants. The wages paid by private contractors are usually' perceived to be lower and the benefit packages weaker than that which would have been provided by the metropolitan government. Third, service sector wages are perceived to be low relative to factory jobs. The living wage movement is part of a general effort to boost the income that comes from service-producing employment.

History of national minimum wage in the UK. LSS Metcalf, David. "The National Minimum Wage: Coverage, Impact and Future*." Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 64.Supplement (2002): 567-82. David Metcalf is a professor of Economics at the London Sc

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