Instigator / Con
12
1596
rating
42
debates
63.1%
won
Topic
#205

Minimum wage

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
12
Better sources
4
8
Better legibility
4
4
Better conduct
4
3

After 4 votes and with 15 points ahead, the winner is...

David
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
1,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
27
1485
rating
92
debates
45.65%
won
Description

No information

Round 1
Con
#1
This is the 1st round.  It is my 1st debate, so I would except it to be formatted similar to DDO, but I accept.
Pro
#2
Good luck. I accept 
Round 2
Con
#3
Good luck to you too.

I am against any minimum wage and I believe that it should be $0.00/hour.  This is because if a poor person does not like their job due to a lack of salary, the government could provide them with a job that pays more.  There honestly is a lot of stuff that the government could have former minimum wage workers do.  An example of this is rebuilding homes in PR.

In this example, the average salary of a construction worker is $14.79 per hour (https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Construction_Worker/Hourly_Rate).  Assuming they get the 10% rate, since they are new, this is about $10 per hour.  Under this idea, they would be getting a Hillary Clinton minimum wage and once they have some more experience, they may eventually get a Bernie Sanders minimum wage which is close to the average.
Pro
#4
Facts about the minimum wage
  • On average a minimum wage worker needs 2.5 full time jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment
  • Most minimum wage workers are older than 16-24
  • Walmart workers (who mostly make minimum wage) cost the government over 6 billion dollars in federal benefits
1. Minimum wage is good for the economy

If we raise the minimum wage to a living wage, we would save billions of dollars in benefits. Corporations who pay their employees poverty wages end up benefiting from those benefits and is de facto corporate welfare. Example: A walmart worker who makes minimum wage gets food stamps that they use at walmart. Walmart is benefiting by not paying their employees enough and then they get the benefits that they spend at their store.

Raising the minimum wage enables the lower-class to spend more money and increase jobs. 

2. Minimum wage protects workers

Minimum wage is important as it protects the workers from the whims of their employer. If there was no minimum wage companies will be paying far less than $7.25. Employers steal billions of dollars in wages each year. Having no minimum wage loses that protection. 
 
Round 3
Con
#5
You didn't rebuttal my main argument in round 2.  I would like to think this is poor conduct and I hope the voters concur with this.

Some Cons to the minimum wage:

Unemployment increase:

https://minimum-wage.procon.org/ states as their 1st pro, "The Congressional Budget Office projected that a minimum wage increase from $7.25 to $10.10 would result in a loss of 500,000 jobs."

Other arguments:
What if there was a way to satisfy both parties?  If there was no minimum wage, then workers who didn't like their job due to lack of salary could simply find a job somewhere else as I stated in round #1.  If there are all these homeless people who need jobs and all these islanders that need their houses rebuilt, then I'm calling for a common sense solution. Give the unemployed and anyone who wants the job a chance to rebuild the homes and they have jobs.  You also have the PR people happy with their homes being rebuilt and this makes them less likely to break away from the US.

Pro
#6
Con's counter plan ought to be rejected. First he does not provide any evidence that such a plan would work. I proved in my opening speech that min. wage laws help protect workers, an important point that con drops entirely. Second, con's counter plan won't work because people are still going to have to do those "minimum wage" jobs. 

Con's unemployment argument is also deeply flawed

these basic economic indicators show no correlation between minimum-wage increases and lower employment levels, even in the industries that are most impacted by higher minimum wages...in the substantial majority of instances (68 percent) overall employment increased after a federal minimum-wage increase. In the most substantially affected industries, the rates were even higher: in the leisure and hospitality sector employment rose 82 percent of the time following a federal wage increase, and in the retail sector it was 73 percent of the time
Thank you. Please vote pro.