Minimum Wage Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Minimum Wage Law - Essay Example Their intent was to establish a national minimum standard of living and stabilize the economy by regulating pay of the poorest social class. The outcomes from this grand experiment are varied. Social activists maintain that it prevents greedy businesses and heartless corporations from exploiting the lowest wage earners. Economists hypothesize that it may actually reduce employment and deepen the wounds of poverty. Politicians seek to justify the law to constituent consumers and small business owners (many of whom pay must pay part-time workers above their market value). This paper will examine issues surrounding the Minimum Wage Law to determine the best approach for assuring low-end wage earners survive in a free-market society. Minimum wages ability to strengthen the economy remains subject to intense analysis and research. Legislators intend the law to provide workers and their families with a livable wage, yet many question whether it achieves that or whether it fits into our free market society. The New Deal and its associated recovery programs were viewed by some as "a drastic control of capitalist exploitation, involving a socially planned economy in which the depersonalized pursuit of private profit is subject to check at a thousand strategic points" (MacIver 836). In spite of these goals, traditional capitalists contend that the law contributes to inflation, creates unemployment, and harms small businesses. Some go so far as to call it unconstitutional and counter to the spirit of free market economics. Regardless of whether minimum wage fits into our free market ideology, leaders have an obligation to implement policies that offer significant overall benefits to the good of its citizens, especially those in the most need. This leads to three questions about regulating base pay: First, is it necessary to alleviate suffering, hunger, or inhumane hardship? Second,