Minimum Wage Myths

 Posted on July 25,2013 in Employee Rights

In every state, the minimum wage is different, but across the country, very few people actually understand the laws that encompass minimum wage. Here are a few myths, and the truth about them:

Increasing the minimum wage will stimulate the economy.

• There is actually no real link between economic growth and the rate of minimum wage across the country. What has been seen in areas with a high minimum wage, however, is a higher amount of less-skilled employees.

Raising minimum wage does not reduce employment according to studies.

• Raising minimum wage causes job loss for less-skilled employees, according to research of University of Irvine economists and the Federal Reserve Board. This is because when employers must pay their workers more, they cannot continue to pay the same amount of people because it will cost more, and employers cut from the bottom. The least valuable workers, those with the fewest skills, are laid off first.

Minimum wage employees have no way to get a higher wage unless the government requires that they receive a raise.

• If employees work hard, they can move up at their place of work, even if they start at the bottom. They key is to be irreplaceable to the company so that the company does not want to lose you.

Poverty can be reduced by simply increasing the minimum wage levels.

• Cornell and American University economists found no association to poverty rates between 2003 and 2007 when 28 states increased their minimum wages in order to reduce poverty. The trouble with minimum wage jobs is that they are often jobs that nobody wants and those people do not stick with them long enough to see a raise. Also, these are most often jobs that teenagers in high school take, and the minimum wage laws only apply to adults 18 years of age and older. Just like with any job, though, employees must work hard, become irreplaceable, and gain respect to move up in the company and create a better life for themselves and their families.

If you feel that you have done everything you can, you qualify for a wage that you are not receiving and do not know how to handle it, contact an employment attorney for help. Attorneys at the Miller Law Firm in Schaumberg, Ill. will help you today.