Minimum Wage Capstone

Sub 4

Before I conducted the interview, my stance on the situation leaned towards increasing the minimum wage. After doing my own research of this topic on the minimum wage, I went out to the Texas community to interview two expert subjects with differing views to better understand the controversy and to gain an expert’s insight on both sides of this issue. The first interview subject was Mr. Ed Sills who is a communications director of the Texas AFL-CIO he is a proponent of raising the minimum wage. The second interview subject was Dr. Vance Ginn a senior economist from the Texas Policy Foundation and the director for the Center of Economic Prosperity who is an opponent of raising the minimum wage. Although I was unable to learn much from my first interview subject, the second interview subject gave me new insights on the topic and completely swayed my stance on it.

When the topic of the benefits and the negatives involved with increasing minimum wage came up, the answers I got back from the two interview subjects were very different. Mr. Sills believes that there are no negatives involved with increasing minimum wage. When I mentioned that some businesses operate on a very tight margin and that increasing wages might potentially tip them towards bankruptcy because of rising operating expenses, Mr. Sills said the failure of the business is because of a flawed business model. He also said businesses who cite the fact that they aren’t making profit exploit their employees by not paying more to them. Mr. Sills believe by giving the minimum wage workers extra income it would improve their lifestyle because they will have more to spend. He also said that the extra income they make will likely be spent straight away instead of being saved which potentially has positive effects on the economy.

        As for my second interview subject, Dr. Ginn believes raising wages will do more harm for the minimum wage workers than good. From the answer he gave me, I learned something new. He said he does not see any positives since increasing minimum wage will only hurt the working poor with higher unemployment. He said although proponents may argue that employment rates do not change on the official statistical data, more minimum wage workers become unemployed as there is a switch in profession requirements. The example he gave was of a McDonald’s Kiosk robot that processes orders and take payments. The robot has replaced the job of a cashier who is most likely working the minimum wage because of having low work skill sets. Although the cashier’s job has been replaced by a robot, the robot needs to be maintained by someone who has knowledge on robotics which has high work skill requirements. This in return opens employment positions for jobs that require higher skills but fails to do anything for the working poor who are now met with more employment challenges due to their low-skill sets