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
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!
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/magazine/15wage.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
>.
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
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Definitions
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=lab
orunions
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=lab
orunions
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.
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Definitions
Living Wage (as a movement) defined. LSS.

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.

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.
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Definitions
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.

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 selfsufficiency: $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.
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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.merriamwebster.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?
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Topic Analysis
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, yearround 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
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Topic Analysis
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
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Topic Analysis
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.
<http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/budgeting/minimum-wage.htm> 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 datarelated 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
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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. <http://equitablegrowth.org/research/understandingthe-minimum-wage-and-income-inequality-and-economic-growth/>.
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
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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
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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.
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income trends. He also provides support to the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) on datarelated 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.
income trends. He also provides support to the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) on datarelated 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.
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.
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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
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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. <http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2013/07/against-the-living-wagesubsidyarguments/>.
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.
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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.
<http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/minimum-wage-cruelest-those-who-cant-find-job>.
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
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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. <http://www.cato.org/blog/cbos-minimum-wage-reportthe-increased-earnings-low-wage-workersresulting-higher-minimum-wage>
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.
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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.
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Laying the Foundation

A brief history of the federal minimum wage. LZ.
Congressional Budget Office. Congress of the United States. The Effects of a MinimumWage 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.)
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Living wage movement based on family wage campaigns. LSS.

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.
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.

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

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.
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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
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Jan/Feb 2015
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.).
Page 29 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Three reasons for rise of living wage movement. LSS.

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 School of Economics.
When the national minimum wage (NMW) was introduced in April 1999 the rate was 3.60/hour (age 22 years
or more) with a lower rate of 3.00/hour for those aged 1821 years. Since then, the NMW has been uprated
three times such that at the time of writing (April 2003) it is 4.20 for adults and 3.60 for younger workers.
The increase in the adult rate between April 1999 and October 2002 was the outcome of a careful consideration
of many factors (see LPC, 2001a,b) including those set out in section II. The 60 pence hike ensured that the
NMW kept pace with the growth in the annual earnings index (AEI). In October 2003 the NMW will rise to
4.50 and a year later to 4.85. These increases are around double the growth in the AEI. The LPC has also
recommended that, subject to economic conditions, the minimum wage should rise more rapidly than average
earnings in 2005 and 2006 as well (LPC, 2003, para 6.39).
Page 30 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Over 1.2 million workers paid below national minimum wage prior to introduction. LSS
Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 64.Supplement (2002): 567-82. David Metcalf is
a professor of Economics at the London School of Economics.
Allowing for growth in earnings between spring 1998 and April 1999 the LPC calculates (LPC, 2003, para 2.6)
that 1.2 million employees were paid below the NMW just prior to its introduction. The composition of such
jobs is presented in Table 1. Females accounted for nearly three quarters and female part-timers for over half of
those covered. Almost half the employees covered were in the wholesale and retail trades and hotels and
restaurants. One of six workers in personal and protective services and sales had their pay directly raised by the
NMW. Regional coverage shows that the incidence of pay levels below the NMW was lower than the national
average in eastern, London and South East regions but above the national average everywhere else.
Discrepancies in UK earning statistics troublesome for economic institutions. LSS.

Consider a particular example the October 2001 uprating of data problems faced by the LPC on the basis of
information supplied to the Commission by the ONS. The adult NMW was raised to 4.10/hour in October
2001. Let us ask a very simple question: how many jobs are paid below 4.10 i.e. what was the number of
beneficiaries when the uprating in the NMW occurred? If we apply this question to March 2002 6 months
after it happened data from the spring of 2001 is the answer to it. Therefore, assume that the earnings of the
low paid rose either in line with earnings or in line with prices for the period between spring 2001 and October
2001. If pay rose in line with prices, the pay figure equivalent to 4.10 in October 2001 is 4.05 in the spring of
2001. The corresponding figure if pay rose in line with average earnings is 4.00/hour. Numbers below these
hourly earnings are set out in Table 2. It will be seen that (for 4.05) the LFS figure is nearly 2 million, almost
double the corresponding figures (1.1 million) from the NES. Subsequently, the LFS numbers were sharply
revised down (see LPC, 2003, Appendix 3). Frankly, such a discrepancy in official earnings statistics beggars
belief. It affects the findings of academic researchers. It also makes it incredibly difficult for the Low Pay
Commission, Bank of England, Treasury, etc. to make an informed assessment of the impact of upratings in the
NMW on the number of beneficiaries, the aggregate sector wage bills, the AEI and the distribution of pay,
including the gender pay gap. The discrepancy between the NES and LFS coverage feeds through into the pay
data itself. For example in the spring of 2001 mean hourly earnings for all employees aged 22 years and more is
10.59 according to the NES, yet only 8.08 in the LFS!
Page 31 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Living wage proposal in North Carolina proposed $14.63 an hour. LSS.

Just how much does it take for families to live and work without public or private assistance or subsidies? That
is the question that most living wage studies have attempted to answer. In general, they are not concerned with
the vast set of public subsidies that finance education, culture and the arts, public safety, and the social
infrastructure. The studies are interested in the means-tested subsidies that have been under attack in the current
phase of welfare reform.
A good example of a living wage study is the NC EQUITY Sustainable Family Initiative [Outtz et al. 1997]
report. The report calculates a "Self-Sufficiency Standard" for numerous family types and areas in North
Carolina. The Standard defines the level of income necessary to meet basic needs including paying taxes for a
family. Like most studies, it uses Fair Market Rents from recent HUD studies, standard childcare costs from the
region, and the federal government's Low-Cost (rather than the Thrifty) Food Plan [U.S. Department of
Agriculture 1997]. In addition, the study includes the costs of transportation, family medical care, and personal
care products.
The result of the 1997 North Carolina study is a set of tables for every county and MSA with an estimate of the
Standard for seven family types. The emphasis is on the single-parent family with preschool children. The
living wage for full-time employment in 1996 for a single parent family with two pre-school children would be
$14.63 per hour in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill MSA and $10.09 per hour in rural Warren County, North
Carolina.
Page 32 of 141
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Living wage proposal in Minnesota proposed $15.37 an hour. LSS.

A similar public advocacy research project occurred in Minnesota [Steuernagel and Ristau 1998] for the JOBS
NOW Coalition of trade unions and community organizations. Bruce Steuernagel and Kevin Ristau emphasize
the basic needs of their living wage estimates:
The cost analysis is based upon monthly budget requirements necessary to achieve a "no frills" standard of
living. No money is included for debt payments or skills training. There is no entertainment budget; no
restaurant meals, no vacation... [Steuernagel and Ristau 1998, 1].
For a single-parent family with two preschool children in 1997, they estimate an annual income of $31,969
($15.37 per hour) for the metropolitan regions of the state and $22,968 ($11.04 per hour) for the rest of the
state. Similar results were found. for the Philadelphia area living wage analysis [ACORN 1997].
Living wage proposal in Tennessee proposed $11.15 an hour. LSS.

A detailed example of how the living wage is calculated comes from my study [Ciscel 1999] of Memphis for
the University Center for Research on Women and Women's Foundation of Greater Memphis. Table 1 provides
an estimate of the living wage for Memphis. The living wage ranges from $22,306 per year ($11.15 per hour)
for a single parent with one preschool child to $31,220 per year ($8.92 per hour) for two working parents with
two children.
Page 33 of 141
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Minimum wage insufficient, sparking the living wage movement. LSS.

The minimum wage does not provide for an above-poverty income for a family of two. Working 2,080 hours
per hour year, the minimum wage of $5.15 would provide $10,712 in income before taxes. As Figart [1999, 5]
notes: "From 1938 through the 1960s, the minimum wage hovered around at least 50 percent of the average
hourly wage of production and nonsupervisory workers in the private sector. Since the 1970s . . . the federal
minimum wage . . . [has] lost more and more of [its] buying power.
Page 34 of 141
Affirmative Evidence
Page 35 of 141
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Aff: Polls
Polls
Across all groups, including the rich and the conservatives, people support raising the
national minimum wage. LZ.
Molyneux, Guy. "Public Support for Raising the Minimum Wage." Hart Research
Associates. N.p., 23 July 2013. Web. 6 Aug. 2014. <http://www.nelp.org/page//rtmw/uploads/Memo-Public-Support-Raising-Minimum-Wage.pdf?nocdn=1>.
By a ratio of four to one, Americans support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and adjusting
it for the cost of living in future years. Eight in ten adults (80%) approve of this minimum wage proposal,
including 46% who strongly approve, and just 20% disapprove. Support is equally strong among registered
voters (79%), and is well over 70% in every region of the country. Approval is voiced not only by Democrats
(92%) and low-income adults (83%), but also by such traditionally conservative groups as Republicans
(62%), southern whites (75%), and those with incomes over $100,000 (79%). We also find solid support for
the $10.10 minimum wage among swing political constituencies, including independents (80%) and non-college
whites (80%).
Support within the United States is extremely strong, which is a strong, intuitive reason for enacting a
higher minimum wage. This evidence shows that even the people most likely to oppose such legislation
because of philosophical beliefs are actually in support of raising the minimum wage to a living wage,
contradicting the idea that people highly oppose the minimum wage.
Even small business owners agree, the ones most affected by an increase in the minimum
wage. LZ.
Brodwin, David. "A Higher Minimum Wage Is Good for Business." US News. U.S.News &
World Report, 14 July 2014. Web. 06 Aug. 2014.
<http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/07/14/why-smallbusiness-owners-back-a-minimum-wage-hike>.
Five years ago this month, the minimum wage reached the lofty sum of $7.25 per hour, the last step in a series
of increases Congress set in motion in 2007. It hasnt been raised since, and after taking inflation into account,
the minimum has fallen to an adjusted level of only $6.54. That may change soon. Support for a higher
minimum wage now comes from an unlikely source: the owners of Americas small businesses, and CEOs
of some the nations largest and most respected brands. Meanwhile, recently published research shows
that wage hikes at a modest level dont kill growth and jobs. In fact, the states that have raised their
minimums have enjoyed above-average economic growth.
Page 36 of 141
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Aff: Polls
Last week the American Sustainable Business Council and Business for a Fair Minimum Wage released a report
of a scientific national poll of small business owners. The poll involved a live telephone survey of 555 small
business owners, with between 2 and 99 employees each. Respondents spanned the political spectrum, all
regions of the country and a broad cross-section of industries.
Three out of five small business owners (61 percent) favor raising the minimum wage gradually to $10.10
and then adjusting it annually to keep pace with the cost of living. This new polling data contradicts the
oft-repeated claim that raising the minimum wage will kill profits, eliminate jobs and cut growth.
Apparently the people doing the hiring and paying the difference dont agree with those dour
predictions.
Small business owners understand that their success depends on the overall health of the U.S. economy, since
by and large they cant export their way out of a slump in the U.S. And they recognize that, within limits, when
workers are paid more, they spend more, and that helps the economy. 58 percent of small business owners
believe that raising the minimum wage would increase consumer purchasing power. Similarly, 56 percent
say that raising the minimum wage will help the economy overall.
When considering how a higher minimum wage might affect them, 53 percent said that it would lead to lower
employee turnover, increased productivity and greater customer satisfaction.
Support for a higher minimum wage crosses party lines among business owners, even though it doesnt among
professional politicians. Small business owners are a largely Republican crowd, with fewer Democrats
than independents. Even among Republican business owners, 49 percent support raising the wage, tied
with the number who oppose it.
This evidence shows that those that are directly affected by minimum wage increases actually want an
increase in minimum wage because they feel that it will benefit them.
Page 37 of 141
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Aff: Polls
Very few people want to eliminate the minimum wage. LZ.

Molyneux, Guy. "Public Support for Raising the Minimum Wage." Hart Research
Associates. N.p., 23 July 2013. Web. 6 Aug. 2014. <http://www.nelp.org/page//rtmw/uploads/Memo-Public-Support-Raising-Minimum-Wage.pdf?nocdn=1>.
When people are informed that a U.S. senator recently called for abolishing the minimum wage, the reaction is
strongly negative. Eighty percent (80%) of adults (and 80% of registered voters) disagree with this idea, with
nearly half of all Americans (48%) strongly disagreeing. More than three-quarters of residents in every
region of the nation reject ending the minimum wage. Even Republican voters (72%), college-educated
white men (75%), and adults with incomes over $100,000 (85%) disagree with the abolition of the
minimum wage.
Americans are currently disengaged form their jobs costing the U.S. as much $550 billion.
Polls prove. BG
Steve Siebold. New Gallup Poll Shows 70 Percent of Americans Are Disengaged From
Their Jobs. June 19, 2013. He is the author of five books and writer for the
Huffington Post.
Siebol writes A recent Gallup poll found that 70 percent of American workers are disengaged from their
jobs. Of the 100 million people who hold jobs in America, the survey found that 30 million are actively
engaged, 50 million are not engaged and 20 million are actively disengaged. The consequences are many, but
Gallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. as much as $550 billion in economic
activity each year. The public also suffers immensely as this disengagement will undoubtedly rub off on poor
customer service and issues of quality control.
Page 38 of 141
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Aff: Economy
Economy
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.
Brodwin, David. "A Higher Minimum Wage Is Good for Business." US News. U.S.News &
World Report, 14 July 2014. Web. 06 Aug. 2014.
<http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/07/14/why-smallbusiness-owners-back-a-minimum-wage-hike>.
Recent economic research supports an increase. While too high an increase would damage economic growth,
the range of increases currently being enacted are helping rather than hurting the economies involved. A
recent study compared what happened to total payrolls in states that raised the minimum versus states
that didnt. The 13 states that raised the wage enjoyed nearly 50 percent faster employment growth than
the ones that didnt. This isnt a theoretical analysis of what might happen; this is a data-based analysis of
what actually did happen. Minimum wage hikes, at the modest levels that are getting voted into law, help
economies grow.
This evidence is pretty good because it shows empirically, that increasing minimum wage laws are good
for the economy. It even shows that specifically modest increases, like a living wage, are the ones that
benefit the economy. The negative evidence about it hurting the economy can be true, but it probably
doesnt prove that modest increases hurt the economy.
A nonpartisan analysis of the issue shows that nearly all economic indicators increased when
the minimum wage was increased. LZ.
The Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) is a nonpartisan research and education organization that
focuses on the broad range of tax, budget, and economic and related public policy
issues that affect the quality of life and the economic well being of New York State
residents. States with Minimum Wages above the Federal Level have had Faster
Small Business and Retail Job Growth. March 30, 2006.
http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/FPISmallBusinessMinWage.pdf
The last time the federal minimum wage was increased was in September of 1997. Since then, a growing
number of states have raised their own minimum wage levels above the federal $5.15 level. By 1999, 10 states
and Washington, D.C. had minimum wages above the federal level. The next big wave of increases came in
2005 when five states set their minimums above the federal level. There are currently 18 states, plus the District
of Columbia, that have a higher minimum wage. In addition, Michigan recently acted to raise its minimum
wage effective October 1, 2006. These 19 higher minimum wage states comprise a diverse set of states and
Page 39 of 141
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Aff: Economy
include seven northeastern states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and
Rhode Island), four Midwestern states (Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin), the five West Coast
states (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii), and Delaware, Maryland, Florida, and the District
of Columbia. Altogether, the states that have raised their minimum wages account for almost half of the
nations total employment. In examining state-level small business job growth, the best government data
available permits a comparison of 1998 and 2003; the latter is the most recent year for which the data are
available. For the 10 states and the District of Columbia that had set their minimum wages above the
federal level for most of this period, indicators of economic performance were consistently better than for
the other 40 states where the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour prevailed: The number of small
businesses across the economy with fewer than 50 employees grew by 5.4% from 1998 to 2003 in the higher
minimum wage states, compared to a 4.2% increase for the balance of the states; and In the higher minimum
wage states as a group, small businesses had faster job growth (6.7% vs. 5.3% for the other 40 states
combined); total annual payroll grew more (24.5% vs. 21.2%); and average payroll per worker increased by
16.7%, a greater increase than the 15.1% increase for the 40 states observing the federal minimum wage.
There are a couple of reasons why this evidence is really good: Its the best government data available.
Other data sets are incomplete or dont have an adequate sample size. Its comparative on the issue and
shows you what has happened with a higher minimum wage so the evidence compares what actually has
happened. Their evidence will be one sided and doesnt show what the alternative is; mine does. Finally,
its empirical in nature. Their evidence will be predictive in economic analysis; this evidence shows you
what has happened when this action was actually taken. This is the only evidence on this question that
shows what has actually happened in the past.
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Aff: Economy
An increase in the minimum wage would not significantly affect the federal budget. LZ.
Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on the Federal Budget. In addition to affecting employment and family
income, increasing the federal minimum wage would affect the federal budget directly by increasing the wages
that the federal government paid to a small number of hourly employees and indirectly by boosting the prices of
some goods and services purchased by the government. Most of those costs would need to be covered by
discretionary appropriations, which are capped through 2021 under current law. Federal spending and taxes
would also be indirectly affected by the increases in real income for some people and the reduction in real
income for others. As a group, workers with increased earnings would pay more in taxes and receive less in
federal benefits of certain types than they would have otherwise. However, people who became jobless because
of the minimum-wage increase, business owners, and consumers facing higher prices would see a reduction in
real income and would collectively pay less in taxes and receive more in federal benefits than they would have
otherwise. CBO concludes that the net effect on the federal budget of raising the minimum wage would
probably be a small decrease in budget deficits for several years but a small increase in budget deficits
thereafter. It is unclear whether the effect for the coming decade as a whole would be a small increase or
a small decrease in budget deficits.
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Aff: Economy
The effects of a $9.00 minimum wage. LZ.

The $9.00 option would reduce employment by about 100,000 workers, or by less than 0.1 percent, CBO
projects. There is about a two-thirds chance that the effect would be in the range between a very slight increase
in employment and a reduction in employment of 200,000 workers, in CBOs assessment. Roughly 7.6 million
workers who will earn up to $9.00 per hour under current law would have higher earnings during an average
week in the second half of 2016 if this option was implemented, CBO estimates, and some people earning more
than $9.00 would have higher earnings as well. The increased earnings for low-wage workers resulting from the
higher minimum wage would total $9 billion; 22 percent of that sum would accrue to families with income
below the poverty threshold, whereas 33 percent would accrue to families earning more than three times the
poverty threshold, CBO estimates. For family income overall and for various income groups, CBO estimates the
following: Once the increases and decreases in income for all workers are taken into account, overall real
income would rise by $1 billion. Real income would increase, on net, by about $1 billion for families whose
income will be below the poverty threshold under current law, boosting their average family income by about 1
percent and moving about 300,000 people, on net, above the poverty threshold. Families whose income would
have been between one and three times the poverty threshold would receive, on net, $3 billion in additional real
income. About $1 billion, on net, would go to families whose income would have been between three and six
times the poverty threshold. Real income would decrease, on net, by $4 billion for families whose income
would otherwise have been six times the poverty threshold or more, lowering their average family income by
about 0.1 percent.
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Aff: Economy
The effects of a $10.10 option. LZ.

The $10.10 option would have substantially larger effects on employment and income than the $9.00 option
wouldbecause more workers would see their wages rise; the change in their wages would be greater; and,
CBO expects, employment would be more responsive to a minimum-wage increase that was larger and was
subsequently adjusted for inflation. The net effect of either option on the federal budget would probably be
small. Effects of the $10.10 Option on Employment and Income. Once fully implemented in the second half of
2016, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3 percent, CBO
projects. As with any such estimates, however, the actual losses could be smaller or larger; in CBOs
assessment, there is about a two-thirds chance that the effect would be in the range between a very slight
reduction in employment and a reduction in employment of 1.0 million workers (see Table 1). Many more lowwage workers would see an increase in their earnings. Of those workers who will earn up to $10.10 under
current law, mostabout 16.5 million, according to CBOs estimateswould have higher earnings during an
average week in the second half of 2016 if the $10.10 option was implemented.1 Some of the people earning
slightly more than $10.10 would also have higher earnings under that option, for reasons discussed below.
Further, a few higher-wage workers would owe their jobs and increased earnings to the heightened demand for
goods and services that would result from the minimum wage increase. The increased earnings for low-wage
workers resulting from the higher minimum wage would total $31 billion, by CBOs estimate.2 However, those
earnings would not go only to low-income families, because many low-wage workers are not members of lowincome families. Just 19 percent of the $31 billion would accrue to families with earnings below the poverty
threshold, whereas 29 percent would accrue to families earning more than three times the poverty threshold,
CBO estimates.3 Moreover, the increased earnings for some workers would be accompanied by reductions in
real (inflation-adjusted) income for the people who became jobless because of the minimum-wage increase, for
business owners, and for consumers facing higher prices. CBO examined family income overall and for various
income groups, reaching the following conclusions: Once the increases and decreases in income for all workers
are taken into account, overall real income would rise by $2 billion. Real income would increase, on net, by $5
billion for families whose income will be below the poverty threshold under current law, boosting their average
family income by about 3 percent and moving about 900,000 people, on net, above the poverty threshold (out of
the roughly 45 million people who are projected to be below that threshold under current law). Families whose
income would have been between one and three times the poverty threshold would receive, on net, $12 billion
in additional real income. About $2 billion, on net, would go to families whose income would have been
between three and six times the poverty threshold. Real income would decrease, on net, by $17 billion for
families whose income would otherwise have been six times the poverty threshold or more, lowering their
average family income by 0.4 percent.
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Aff: Economy
Raising the minimum wage increases the employment of higher wage workers. LZ.
Low-wage workers are not the only ones whose employment can be affected by a minimum-wage increase; the
employment of higher-wage workers can be affected as well, in several ways. Firms that cut back on production
tend to reduce the number of both higher-wage workers and low-wage workers. But once a minimum-wage
increase makes higher-wage workers relatively less expensive, firms sometimes hire more of them to
replace a larger number of less productive low-wage workers. Another factor affecting higher-wage
workers is the increase in the economy wide demand for goods and services. All in all, a higher minimum
wage tends to increase the employment of higher-wage workers slightly, according to CBOs analysis.
Low wage workers are more likely to spend than any other income group. LZ.
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 datarelated 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).
Page 44 of 141
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Aff: Economy
An increase in the minimum wage would provide an additional $35 billion to the economy.
LZ.
provides support to the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) on datarelated 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
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 statelevel 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.
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Implementing a living wage actually benefits companies thus helping the economy. BG
Supporters of the living wage, on the other hand, argue that benefiting employees will also help the company. If
employees are more satisfied earning a living wage, there will be less employment turnover. This reduces
expensive recruitment and training costs for the firm. They also argue that the higher wage will boost morale.
Employees with high morale are expected to have higher productivity, allowing the company to benefit from
increased worker output.
Raising wages helps local businesses and the local economy. BG

Larry Hubich and Erin Weir. "Minimum wage hike can benefit Sask. Economy." The
Star-Phonenix; August 31, 2012. Hubich is president of the Saskatchewan
Federation of Labour. Weir is president of the Progressive Economics Forum.
Some benefits of a fair minimum wage are obvious. It means more much-needed income in the hands of lowpaid workers. Increasing the wages of workers at the lowest end of the income spectrum would also add to
consumer spending in Saskatchewan, helping local businesses and other participants in the economy. More
than any other group, low-income earners spend their money in their communities. For example, they are
far less likely to make foreign investments or to travel abroad. Increasing Saskatchewan's minimum wage
would bolster the provincial economy.
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Raising wages helps scrupulous businesses compete against those that cut corners in order to
decrease costs. BG
Jeff Chapman and Jeff Thompson. The economic impact of local living wages. February
15, 2006. Chapman is an Assistant Research Professor at the Political Economy
Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. Thompson is an economist
on the Federal Reserve Board.
A common sentiment expressed by contractors in Baltimore was that the higher wage floor leveled the
playing field. As one bus company manager stated, We feel more able to compete against businesses that
were drastically reducing wages in order to put in a low bid. The LAANE employer survey found that
11% of firms consider it easier to compete for city contracts following the living wage policy (Fairris et al.
2005, 111). These firms felt that the new policy had made it possible for scrupulous companies paying decent
wages to compete against firms whose main strategy is to drive down wages. Elmores survey indicates that
following adoption of a living wage, some cities instituted competitive bidding for contracts that had not been
put out for bid in many years. These cities report that the return to bidding led to cost savings. Brenner and Luce
(2005) determined that the large increase in the number of bidders in Hartford was the result of more security
firms willing to bid because of the living wage ordinance. Previously, firms that paid their workers higher
wages were unwilling to bid when the outcome of the contract was determined exclusively by who could offer
the lowest wages. One security guard contractor remarked, Most companies with any business sense would
concentrate on a higher wage niche, because there is more stability involved, and it gives you better control of
the business, and allows you to preserve your reputation. Similar sentiments were expressed in New Haven,
where that citys comptroller noted that the living wage puts all vendors on equal footing [and] it has leveled
off undercutting. Under the ordinance, competition for contracts is determined by more than which firms can
drive wages down the lowest, and is influenced by other factors, such as service quality.
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Minimum wage is not sufficient. Only living wage can improve the lives of the common
American. BG
The astounding growth of the living wage movement has been a response to the predicament of
Americans who work but are unable to make ends meet, as well as to the public policies contributing to
the problem. Public policies have exacerbated the problem from the federal level to the local level. Since the
early 1980s, the federal government has generally neglected the minimum wage; by 2005, a minimum
wage paycheck bought less than it had in 49 of the last 50 years. Local governments have contributed to
the problem, following the trend of cutting costs by contracting out services to firms who frequently pay
lower wages and offer fewer benefits than public employment. Too often, economic development efforts
have channeled public funds in the form of tax breaks or tax incentives to businesses without regard to
the quality of the jobs those businesses provide. As a result of these policies, the two most common themes
echoed by living wage proponents are (1) that wages should be high enough to allow workers to meet basic
needs (i.e., living wages), and (2) that municipal policy should encourage or require living wages for its
employees and contractors, rather than exacerbate the problems faced by low-wage workers.
Minimum wage is not sufficient. More evidence proves that minimum wage cannot keep up
with inflation. BG
Stacy Brustin, 2012. Child Support: Shifting the Financial Burden in Low-Income
Families, Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy Professor of Law at The
Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law.
One avenue that child support advocates for low-income resident and nonresident parents might consider is
joining forces with employment law advocates to push for increases in minimum wage laws and living wage
initiatives. From 2007 to 2009, Congress raised the federal minimum wage from $ 5.15 to $ 7.25 per hour.
This was the first in-crease in ten years and, despite the increase, the minimum wage rate failed to keep
up with the rate of inflation. Economists have calculated that if the minimum wage "had kept pace with
the rate of inflation over the past forty years, it would now be more than $ 10.00 per hour." Currently,
eighteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage and
legislators around the country [*45] are trying to ex-pand the state count. Most recently, the Rebuild America
Act, introduced in March 2012, proposes to increase the federal minimum wage to $ 9.80 per hour by 2014 and
index the rate to the Consumer Price Index so that the mini-mum wage rises to meet costs.
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Minimum wage is not sufficient. Even more evidence proves. BG

Paul Sonn and Tsedeye Gebreselassie. 2010. The Road to Responsible Contracting:
Lessons from States and Cities for Ensuring That Federal Contracting Delivers
Good Jobs and Quality Services. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law.
Sonn is Legal Co-director of the NELP. Tsedeye is a Staff Attorney for the NELP.
Reforming the DOL's methodology for determining prevailing wages, which was weakened by the Reagan
Administration in the early 1980s, can help ensure more adequate wages under federal contracts. But even with
such improvements, the prevailing wage laws are just one tool for promoting responsible employment practices
on federally funded projects. Because prevailing wage laws mirror local industry standards, they will never
consistently guarantee living wages and adequate benefits in all regions and occupations. Moreover, they
do not address contractors' records of violating workplace, tax, and other laws. They should therefore be
supplemented with responsible contracting reforms to ensure that federal spending creates good jobs for
communities and provides quality services for the taxpayers.
Living wage laws benefit working families with few or no negative effects of the economy at
large. BG
Living wage laws benefit working families with few or no negative effects. Recent studies using original
surveys in both Los Angeles and Boston have shown that the workers affected were mostly adults and mostly
working full time. Both the Boston and Los Angeles studies also showed that most living wage workers were in
households struggling to meet a basic-needs budget. In Baltimore and Boston, empirical studies have found no
evidence of diminished employment. In Los Angeles, surveys of workers and firms show that job losses
affected just 1% of workers getting a raise. Two studies of San Francisco living wage policies found
employment increased among airport workers and home health care workers. An exception to the general
conclusion of research on living wages is a series of studies by David Neumark and Scott Adams that estimate
relatively large wage gains and employment losses. The method of these studies has been severely criticized,
and the findings discredited by many researchers.
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Living wages help the economy at large by raising productivity and decreasing turnover. BG
Living wages laws have raised productivity and decreased turnover among affected firms. Multiple studies
of Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have shown that firms enjoy lower turnover among
employees as a result of the living wage ordinance. A study of home-care workers in San Francisco found that
turnover fell by 57% following implementation of a living wage policy. A study of the Los Angeles ordinance
found that absenteeism declined, and the decrease in turnover offset 16% of the total cost of the living wage
ordinance. A study of the San Francisco airport found that annual turnover among security screeners fell from
95% to 19%, as their hourly wage rose from $6.45 to $10.00 an hour.
More studies prove that living wages help the economy at large by raising productivity and
decreasing turnover. BG
One potential benefit of living wage ordinances (which is also one explanation for the minor impact on
municipal budgets and employment levels) is that higher wage floors lead to decreased turnover and
greater work effort among the affected workforce, as well as spur firms to seek out and adopt other
means of boosting productivity. These responses could offset at least some of the increased labor costs
experienced by employers. Most of the available research on living wages suggests that these types of responses
are occurring. Increased productivity resulting from wage increases has been recognized for decades,
particularly in the economics literature on efficiency wages and debates over the minimum wage. With higher
wages, workers may feel greater satisfaction with their job and may decide to put in greater work effort.27
Increased effort could also result from fear of losing the job; now that the job is more desirable than available
alternatives the cost of job loss is greater. A related byproduct is that workers may be less likely to leave their
jobs, thus lowering the rate of employee turnover and reducing costs of recruiting and training new workers. All
of these mechanisms suggest ways that increased labor costs for firms are offset. The research on the living
wage has provided new opportunities to test for evidence of these effects. The earliest living wage studies relied
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on qualitative interviews, and presented evidence to suggest that employees were working harder with the new
wage floor and turnover had declined. In their survey of affected workers, Niedt found that most reported an
improved attitude toward their job, including a greater sense of worth of the job and an intention to stay on the
job longer (Niedt 1999, 2). Similarly, in their interviews with effected contractors, researchers at Preamble
found evidence suggesting improved attitudes toward work as well as reduced turnover (Preamble 1996, 13).
The Preamble study quotes one manager as saying workers seem happy [and] they come to work on time
because they know that at $6.10 [in 1995] per hour, somebody else wants the job if they dont. Further
anecdotal evidence of decreased turnover following living wage ordinances is reported in Elmores survey of
cities. Sander and Lokeys interviews with contractors following implementation of the living wage ordinance
in Los Angeles also yielded evidence that some firms had responded to increased labor costs by becoming more
productive.
More studies prove that living wages help the economy at large by raising productivity. BG
Paul Sonn and Tsedeye Gebreselassie. 2010. The Road to Responsible Contracting:
Lessons from States and Cities for Ensuring That Federal Contracting Delivers
Good Jobs and Quality Services. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law.
Sonn is Legal Co-director of the NELP. Tsedeye is a Staff Attorney for the NELP.
Furthermore, a growing body of research demonstrates that in many industries, contractors that provide
good wages and benefits and respect workplace laws deliver higher-quality services for government
agencies and the taxpayers. For example, as discussed in greater detail below, studies of local living wage
policies have found that better-paid workforces typically see decreased employee turnover (with corresponding
savings in re-staffing costs), increased productivity, and improvements in the quality and reliability of
contracted services for taxpayers. N13In a leading case study, the San Francisco International Airport saw
annual turnover for security screeners plummet from 94.7 percent to 18.7 percent after it instituted a living
wage policy. As a result, employers saved about $ 4,275 per employee in turnover costs and reported
improvements in employee performance, employee morale and customer service.
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NMW conducive to employment retention. LSS.

Another approach is to examine micro-economic evidence on employment change. Stewart (2002a) compared
the probability of remaining in employment before and after the introduction of the NMW between workers
directly affected by the NMW and a control group paid just above the minimum wage prior to its introduction.
He found no significant difference in the employment retention rates of those initially paid below the NMW and
those paid above. If anything, there were small positive effects for young men, adult men and young women,
but small negative effects for adult women.
Increasing living wage doesn't hurt consumers at large. SFO is a good example. BG
One of the most comprehensive, post-passage studies of a living wage ordinance followed the
implementation of the living wage at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). The SFO policy is
almost universally applied to the airport workforce, directly affecting the wages of about 5,400 workers6 (Reich
2005, 119). The living wage policy is actually part of a series of policies called the Quality Standards Program
(QSP) that includes a wage floor. Unlike most other living wage ordinances, the affected firms dont provide
services for a municipal government, but instead operate in a publicly owned facility. Most of the study,
produced by Michael Reich and colleagues at UC Berkeley, concerns the employment and other economic
impacts of the QSP (which will be discussed in the next section), and addresses the issue of cost increases faced
by airport consumers. Reich shows that even if the entire employee compensation cost of the QSP was
passed on to consumers, the effect would be relatively minoran increase of $1.42 per passenger, an
amount unlikely to deter people from using SFO (Reich 2005, 124). This hypothetical increase is
substantially less than the $5 per segment security tax implemented following September 11th and the $4.50
departure tax proposed by the airport in 2001 to study options for a new runway.
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NMW has potential to alleviate poverty. LSS.

The NMW itself cannot solve the problems of poverty and income inequality: many low-income people do not
work because they are pensioners, unemployed or inactive (e.g. some lone parents). But if we focus on
households with working age employed persons the information in Table 3 shows that the NMW is a more
effective anti-poverty device than is sometimes asserted. Although it is true that the NMW raises the incomes of
some second earners youths and working female partners in relatively well-off households, the rise in wage
inequality in the 1980s and 1990s is such that now the NMW has a more substantial impact on the income
distribution than it would have had two decades ago.
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Stopping Crime
Poverty causes violence and crime. BG
Ronald C. Kramer. Poverty, Inequality, and Youth Violence. July 13 2014 .
http://www.umich.edu/~psycours/561/kramer.htm. Professor of sociology and
director of the Criminal Justice Program at Western Michigan University.
The links between extreme deprivation, delinquency, and violence, then, are strong, consistent, and compelling.
There is little question that growing up in extreme poverty exerts powerful pressures toward crime. The fact
that those pressures are overcome by some individuals is testimony to human strength and resiliency, but does
not diminish the importance of the link between social exclusion and violence.
The US demonstrates a good example of how poverty has empirically caused crime. BG
Why does the United States have exceptionally high rates of violent crime, particularly youth homicide,
compared to other industrial nations? Conservative commentators frequently assert that it is a lenient
criminal justice and juvenile justice system that causes high crime rates or that crime and violence are the result
of cultural decline and something called moral poverty. But the American justice system is one of the harshest
in the world, and, although the cultural and moral condition of American families and communities is important
to take into account in understanding crime, these conditions are strongly affected by larger social and
economic forces. These larger social structural conditions are the factors that sociological criminologists point
to as the roots of violence. As Currie (1998) observes, "For there is now overwhelming evidence that
inequality, extreme poverty, and social exclusion matter profoundly in shaping a society's experience of
violent crime. And they matter, in good part, precisely because of their impact on the close-in institutions of
family and community" (114).
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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
When we look at the research on poverty and economic inequality, we find that the United States has by far the
highest poverty rate and the biggest gap between the rich and the poor of any of the developed nations (Kerbo
1996). Currie (1998) notes the findings of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), an international survey of
poverty, inequality, and government spending in industrial countries (Rainwater and Smeeding 1995). The LIS
shows that the United States, while a very wealthy society, has far more inequality and is far less committed
to providing a decent life for the poor than are other developed nations. The LIS also demonstrates that, in
particular, children and families in the United States are far more likely to be poor than those in other
industrial democracies. Furthermore, poor American children are more likely to be extremely poor
compared to children in other advanced countries. According to the LIS and other studies, there are several
reasons why poor children and families in the United States find themselves in such a plight. First, many
Americans in the so-called urban underclass are trapped in a system of concentrated unemployment that results
in an increasingly isolated poverty (Wilson 1996). Second, those who do work, primarily in the secondary
labor market, earn very low wages compared to their counterparts in other countries. This creates the
problem of the working poor. Finally, the United States provides fewer government benefits to either the
underclass or the working poor to offset the problems of concentrated unemployment and poor wages.
Recent changes in the welfare system are likely to aggravate the situation.
A really great extension of the previous piece of evidence is for the use of answering the argument that
employers will fire employees in response to having to pay a higher wage. You can argue that those
people who are being fired are already in poverty and can be considered the "working poor," only a
living wage can bring at least some of those people out of poverty. The next card (from Amy Glasmeier)
can be used as extension evidence to go along with this proving that only getting paid minimum wage
actually furthers poverty.
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Minimum wage does not prevent poverty only living wage can effectively fight poverty.
Galsmeier gives specific numbers on wages for multiple states. BG
Amy Glasmeier. Introduction to the Living Wage Calculator." 2014. She was the
Department Head of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT from 2009 to 2013.
In many American communities, families working in low-wage jobs make insufficient income to live locally
given the local cost of living. Recently, in a number of high-cost communities, community organizers and
citizens have successfully argued that the prevailing wage offered by the public sector and key businesses
should reflect a wage rate required to meet minimum standards of living. Therefore we have developed a living
wage calculator to estimate the cost of living in your community or region. The calculator lists typical expenses,
the living wage and typical wages for the selected location. Update (3-24-14) While the minimum wage sets
an earnings threshold under which our society is not willing to let families slip, it fails to approximate the
basic expenses of families in 2013. Consequently, many working adults must seek public assistance and/or
hold multiple jobs in order to afford to feed, cloth, house, and provide medical care for themselves and
their families. Establishing a living wage, an approximate income needed to meet a familys basic needs,
would enable the working poor to achieve financial independence while maintaining housing and food
security. When coupled with lowered expenses, for childcare and housing in particular, the living wage
might also free up resources for savings, investment, and/or for the purchase of capital assets (e.g.
provisions for retirement or home purchases) that build wealth and ensure long-term financial security. An
analysis of the living wage using updated data from 2013 and compiling geographically specific expenditure
data for food, childcare, health care, housing, transportation, and other basic necessities, finds that: The
minimum wage does not provide a living wage for most American families. A typical family of four (two
working adults, two children) needs to work more than 3 full-time minimum-wage jobs (a 68-hour work week
per working adult) to earn a living wage. Across all family sizes, the living wage exceeds the poverty threshold,
often used to identify need. This means that families earning between the poverty threshold ($23,283 for two
working adults, two children) and the median living wage ($51,224 for two working adults, two children per
year before taxes), may fall short of the income and assistance they require to meet their basic needs. The cost
of housing and childcare for families with children exceeds all other expenses. In the United State, a typical
family of four (two working adults, two children) spends 21% of their after-tax income on childcare and another
21% on housing. Faced with tradeoffs, a second working adult must earn at least $11,195 on average in order to
cover the costs of childcare and other increased expenses when they enter the workforce. Single-parent families
need to work almost twice as hard as families with two working adults to earn the living wage. A single-mother
with two children earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour needs to work 125 hours per week,
more hours than there are in a 5-day week, to earn a living wage. The living wage varies based on the cost of
living and taxes where families live. Families of four (with two working adults, two children) in the North
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($56,179) and West ($53,505) have higher median living wages before taxes than the South ($49,167), and
Midwest ($48,496). Within region, the largest variation is between Southern states, where the living wage
ranges from $45,655 in South Carolina to $69,820 in the District of Columbia. In most metropolitan areas,
where the US economy and jobs are increasingly concentrated, the living wage is higher than the national
median. Consistent with overall regional variation, of the most populous 100 metropolitan areas, Honolulu
($66,554), New York ($67,323), and Washington DC ($69,709) have the highest living wages for the typical
family of four.
The second half of the previous piece of evidence just provides a ton of specific numbers. You do not
necessarily need to read all of these in round but they are good to know and have on hand.
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Poverty leads to youth violence by excluding social supports. BG

One of the most significant ways in which economic deprivation and social exclusion can lead to youth
violence is by inhibiting or breaking down the social supports that affect young people. Cullen (1994)
reviews research that supports his proposition that "America has higher rates of serious crime than other
industrial nations because it is a less supportive society" (531). He notes studies that have demonstrated the
corrosive effect of America's culture of excessive individualism and pursuit of material gain without regard to
means (Messner and Rosenfeld 1997). This competitive pursuit of the American Dream not only encourages
individuals to obtain material goods "by any means necessary"; it also inhibits the development of a "good
society" in which concern for community and mutuality of support dominate. Cullen (1994) also points out that
"economic inequality can generate crime not only by exposing people to relative deprivation but also by
eviscerating and inhibiting the development of social support networks" (534). Moving down from the
national level, Cullen (1994) argues that "the less social support there is in a community, the higher the crime
rate will be" (534). He reviews evidence that "governmental assistance to the poor tends to lessen violent
crime across ecological units," and research that reveals "that crime rates are higher in communities
characterized by family disruption, weak friendship networks, and low participation in local voluntary
organizations" (534-35). Finally, Cullen notes quantitative and ethnographic research on the "underclass" that
documents that powerful social and economic forces have created isolated innercity enclaves. These enclaves
fray the supportive relations that once existed between adults and youths, supportive relations that previously
offered protection to those youths from involvement in crime. We will return to this body of research later in a
review of the work of John Hagan (1994).
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Poverty disrupts family life, thus causing more crime. BG

Next, Cullen (1994) addresses the issue of the role of the family in offering social support. He asserts that "the
more support a family provides, the less likely it is that a person will engage in crime" (538). This is the
critical link between poverty, inequality, exclusion, and violence. Recall Currie's argument that these social
forces matter precisely because of their impact on the close-in institutions like the family. As Cullen (1994,
538) notes, there is a considerable amount of evidence that parental expressive support diminishes children's
risk of criminal involvement. He cites Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber's (1986) comprehensive meta-analysis
of family correlates of delinquency that clearly shows that indicators of a lack of parental support
increase delinquent behavior. This study concludes that youth crime is related inversely to "child-parent
involvement, such as the amount of intimate communication, confiding, sharing of activities, and seeking help"
(Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber 1986, 42). Both Cullen and Currie warn that any discussion of families and
crime must avoid the "fallacy of autonomy the belief that what goes on inside the family can usefully be
separated from the forces that affect it from the outside: the larger social context in which families are
embedded for better or for worse" (Currie 1985, 185). While any family, regardless of its socioeconomic
status, can be affected, both Cullen and Currie stress the social and economic forces like poverty and
inequality that have transformed and, in many cases, ripped apart families, particularly families of the
underclass, in ways that have reduced their capacity to support children. The Panel on High-Risk Youth
(cited in Cullen 1994, 539) states: Perhaps the most serious risk facing adolescents in high-risk settings is
isolation from the nurturance, safety, and guidance that comes from sustained relationships with adults. Parents
are the best source of support, but for many adolescents, parents are not positively involved in their lives. In
some cases, parents are absent or abusive. In many more cases, parents strive to be good parents, but lack
the capacity or opportunity to be so. In his review of the research on the connections between family
deprivation and violent crime, Currie (1998, 135-39) highlights four key findings: "1) extreme deprivation
inhibits children's intellectual development; 2) extreme deprivation breeds violence by encouraging child
abuse and neglect; 3) extreme poverty creates multiple stresses that undermine parents' ability to raise
children caringly and effectively; and 4) poverty breeds crime by undermining parents' ability to monitor
and supervise their children." Findings 1 through 3 provide more specific articulation about the ways in which
poverty and inequality shape youth violence through the lack of social support. Stunted intellectual
development that cripples children's ability to be successful in school or at work, violence and abuse that create
angry and fearful children, and the lack of parental care and nurturance all contribute to the production of young
people who are prone to strike out at the world through violent acts.
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Poverty forces people to become criminals because they do not have the means to escape
poverty and become productive members of society. BG
Another important perspective on the relationship between social and economic conditions, the lack of social
support, and youth crime is contained in the work of John Hagan. In presenting a "new sociology of crime and
disrepute," Hagan (1994) develops the concepts of human, social, and cultural capital and capital disinvestment
processes to help us understand the connections between inequality, social institutions, and violent crime.
According to Hagan, the general concept of human capital refers to the skills, capabilities, and knowledge
acquired by individuals through education and training that allow them to act in new ways. To this he
adds the concept of social capital, which "involves the creation of capabilities through socially structured
relationships between individuals in groups" (67). Social groups such as intact nuclear and extended
families, wellintegrated neighborhoods, stable communities, and even nation-states are the sites for the
development of social capital in individuals that provides them with the resources and capacities to achieve
group and individual goals. These supportive social networks can lead to the formation of cultural capital
such as the credentials of higher education and involvement in high culture like the arts and their
supporting institutions. As Hagan points out, "In these community and family settings, social capital is
used to successfully endow children with forms of cultural capital that significantly enhance their later
life changes" (69). The ability to endow children with social and cultural capital, however, is linked to
economic position. As Hagan (1994) notes, in less advantaged community and social settings, which lack
abundant forms of social and cultural capital, parents are far less able to provide resources,
opportunities, and supports to their children. Thus, "the children of less advantageously positioned and
lessdriven and controlling parents may more often drift or be driven into and along less-promising paths of
social and cultural adaptation and capital formation" (70). These "lesspromising paths of social and cultural
adaptation," of course, include embeddedness in the criminal economy of drugs and other forms of gang activity
and delinquent behavior. Hagan (1994) emphasizes that "disadvantaging social and economic processes" in the
community and broader society, what he calls "capital disinvestment processes," are destructive of social and
cultural capital and often produce deviant subcultural adaptations (70).
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Poverty is the key link to crime. Nothing else matters nearly as much. BG
Another perspective on the impact of cultural and structural forces on the ability of social institutions such as
the family to control youth crime comes from Messner and Rosenfeld (1997). Building on Robert Merton's
concept of anomie, Messner and Rosenfeld assert that the core features of the social organization of the United
States-culture and institutional structure-shape the high levels of American crime. At the cultural level, they
argue that the core values of the American Dream (achievement, individualism, universalism monetary success)
stimulate criminal motivations while promoting weak norms to guide the choices of means to achieve cultural
goals (anomie). As Messner and Rosenfeld point out, "The American Dream does not contain within it strong
injunctions against substituting more effective, illegitimate means for less effective, legitimate means in the
pursuit of monetary success" (76). At the institutional level, Messner and Rosenfeld (1997) observe that the
economy tends to dominate all other social institutions and that this imbalance of institutional power fosters
weak social control. There are two ways that this imbalance of power weakens social control. First social
institutions such as the family and the schools are supposed to socialize children into values, beliefs, and
commitments other than those of the economic system. However, as Messner and Rosenfeld note, "as
these noneconomic institutions are relatively devalued and forced to accommodate to economic
considerations, as they are penetrated by economic standards, they are less able to fulfill their distinctive
socialization functions successfully" (77). Thus, economic domination weakens the normative control
associated with culture.
The previous card and the next one are great to answer arguments that claim that you do not solve for
the root cause of crime and that other factors exist. These pieces of evidence are pretty decisive on the
fact that you solve the most important cause of crime because poverty affects all other potential causes.
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Studies prove that poverty is the key link to crime. BG

Sampson and Laub's innovative reassessment (1993) of the longitudinal data gathered by Sheldon and Eleanor
Glueck in the 1940s also supports the proposition that poverty and inequality undermine the ability of informal
social controls within the family and school to contain delinquent behavior. Sampson and Laub develop an agegraded theory of informal social control. Their basic thesis is that "structural context mediated by informal
family and school controls explains delinquency in childhood and adolescence" (7). Their unified model of
informal family social control focuses on three dimensions: discipline, supervision, and attachment. They
observe that "the key to all three components of informal family social control lies in the extent to which they
facilitate linking the child to family and ultimately society through emotional bonds of attachment and direct yet
socially integrative forms of control, monitoring, and punishment" (68). The second part of Sampson and Laub's
theory suggests that structural background factors, such as poverty, influence youth crime largely through their
effects on family process. The empirical findings support their theory. They find that negative structural forces
have little direct effect on delinquency but instead are mediated by intervening sources of informal social
controls in the family and the school. They offer the following summary: We found that the strongest and most
consistent effects on both official and unofficial delinquency flow from the social processes of family, school,
and peers. Low levels of parental supervision, erratic, threatening, and harsh discipline, and weak parental
attachment were strongly and directly related to delinquency.... Negative structural conditions (such as poverty
or family disruption) also affect delinquency, but largely through family and school process variables.
(Sampson and Laub 1993, 247) What Sampson and Laub find in their reassessment of the Gluecks' data on
white children born in the 1920s and 1930s is supported by a more recent study of urban black children
conducted by Shihadeh and Steffensmier (1994). They studied the links between economic inequality, family
disruption, and urban black violence in more than 150 cities across the country. They found that as
economic inequality increases, so do arrests of black youths for violent crimes. Shihadeh and
Steffensmier suggest that the link between inequality and violence, however, is indirect. Greater income
inequality increases the number of black single-parent households, and the increase in single-parent
households is related to the level of youth violence. Single parents, with more stress and fewer resources,
have a more difficult time monitoring and supervising their children and, in general, exercising effective
social control. Rutter and Giller (1983) and Larzelere and Patterson (1990) provide additional evidence on the
connection between poverty and poor parenting skills.
Page 62 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff: Helps women
Helps Women
Women are disproportionately harmed by low wages. SBH.
David Madland and Nick Bunker June 20, 2012 [David Madland is Director of the
American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Nick
Bunker is a Research Assistant with the project.] Women Are the Biggest Losers
from Failure to Raise Minimum Wage
https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/labor/news/2012/06/20/11682/womenare-the-biggest-losers-from-failure-to-raise-minimum-wage-2/
Women are disproportionately harmed by a low minimum wage because womenand especially women of
colorare much more likely hold low-wage jobs than men. The typical woman earns 77 cents for every dollar
the typical man does, and the fact that women are more likely to be minimum-wage earners than men
contributes to that disparity. This gap is especially distressing now that two-thirds of mothers are either the
breadwinners or co-breadwinners for their families.
In 2011 more than 62 percent of minimum-wage workers were women compared to just 38 percent of male
minimum-wage workers. Slightly more than 2.5 million women earn the minimum wage or less, while
approximately 1.5 million men do. This imbalance is even more drastic once you consider that women were just
46.9 percent of all employed workers in 2011.
!
Women of color are especially effected by a low wage. SBH.
Female workers earning the minimum wage are also disproportionately workers of color. African American
women were 15.8 percent of female workers making the minimum wage in 2011 compared to 12.3 percent of
all employed workers. Similarly, Hispanic women were 16.5 percent of female minimum wage earners but were
only 12.5 percent of employed workers.
Page 63 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff: Helps women
Increasing the minimum wage would help women workers. SBH.

A hike in the minimum wage wouldnt only affect those who earn the minimum wage. Certainly, those who
earn between the current minimum wage and the new minimum wage would be directly affected and see their
wages increase. But workers earning near the new minimum wage would also see an indirect increase due to
what economists call a spillover effect.
The following chart describes the workers who would have been affected by increasing the minimum wage to
$9.80 an hour, as proposed by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) in his Rebuild America Act. More than 55 percent of
workers affected by the minimum wage hike would be women. About 57 percent of those directly affected and
51.3 percent of those indirectly affected by the increase would be women. Similarly, women of color would be
especially affected by the increase: Sixteen percent of affected female workers would be African American,
while 19.3 percent would be Hispanic. The vast majority of women who would be affected by an increase in the
minimum wage are also adults. More than 88 percent of female workers who would see a wage increase are
older than 20. Nearly 55 percent of affected female workers would be older than 30, and 39 percent would be
above the age of 40. Raising the minimum wage would give a needed boost to the incomes of low-wage
women. This one move alone certainly wouldnt solve all of the inequities women face in the labor market, but
it would be a step in the right direction.
Page 64 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff: Helps women
Those in poverty are mostly women and children. SBH.

Joy K. Rice [University of WisconsinMadison] Poverty, Welfare, and Patriarchy:
How Macro-Level Changes in Social Policy Can Help Low-Income Women
Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 57, No. 2, 2001, pp. 355374
Http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/0022-4537.00218/asset/00224537.00218.pdf?v=1&t=i3ijyji9&s=710010a6c580f1b07f26449f17ab998f4d12396a
In every nation of the world, the burden of poverty falls most heavily on women and children. Welfare is a
gender issue, but so is poverty. In the United States, 19.8 million or 57% of the 34.5 million people living in
poverty are women, and 13.5 million or nearly 40% are children under age 18. Today there are significantly
more poor families headed by single women than there were 30 years ago. In 1968, 35% of all poor families
were headed by single women, but that figure was 53% in 1998 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999; Weinberg,
1999). Almost 70% of U.S. working women earn less than $20,000 yearly, and nearly 40% earn less than
$10,000 (Campbell & Greenburger, 1995). The economic gap between poor and rich has also widened sharply
in the last 2 decades, in terms of both income and net worth, and at the millenniums end was at its widest point.
The top 1% of households now owns 39% of the nations wealth (Rich and poor, 1999). The median
American family also prospered, with a nearly 18% rise in wealth, but earnings rose less than 1% in the last
decade for the poorest of American families, and they saw their net worth drop by 25% (Stevenson, 2000). Yet
the discussion continues to be about the welfare crisis, not about the income distribution problem or the
wealth concentration problem (Bassuk, Browne, & Buckner, 1996; Cloward, 1994; Haverman & Scholz,
1994; Phillips, 1990).
Page 65 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff: Helps women
Raising the minimum wage is a way to get women out of poverty and help increase their pay.
SBH.
Joy K. Rice [University of WisconsinMadison] Poverty, Welfare, and Patriarchy:
How Macro-Level Changes in Social Policy Can Help Low-Income Women
Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 57, No. 2, 2001, pp. 355374
Http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/0022-4537.00218/asset/00224537.00218.pdf?v=1&t=i3ijyji9&s=710010a6c580f1b07f26449f17ab998f4d12396a
1. Equal pay for equal work reduces poverty by 50%. In February 1999, the Institute for Womens Policy
Research and the AFL-CIO published Equal Pay for Working Families, which examined state-by-state
estimates of the wage gap between women and men, minorities and nonminorities, and union and nonunion
workers. The national study estimated the lost earnings of working women due to sex-based wage
discrimination and the probable changes in the poverty rates if working women received pay equal to mens in
comparable jobs. The key finding was that the average family loses nearly $4,300 annually because of wage
discrimination and that poverty rates would drop by more than 50% if women received equal pay for equal
work. Although all groups of women would experience significant drops in the poverty rate if they were paid
wages equal to mens wages, the poverty rate for single working mothers would drop the most, from more than
25% to 12.6% (Institute for Womens Poverty Research, 1999). Efforts are underway in more than half the
states to introduce equal-pay legislation and to improve existing equal-pay laws. As one example, in Minnesota,
equal-pay legislation for all government employees resulted in closing the wage gap from 3l% to 14% (Center
for Policy Alternatives, 1998).
How do women gain access to well-paying jobs? The Center for Policy Alter- natives (1998) summarizes key
policy changes and provisions: raise the minimum wage (two thirds of minimum-wage workers are women),
toughen enforcement of the Federal Equal Pay Act, pass legislation strengthening and giving information on
equal-pay rights, study public- and private-sector wages to assess pay equity; and support the movement to
supplement definitions of poverty with the self- sufficiency standard. Such changes would also help womens
pensions, for in no area is the wage discrepancy more glaring than in retirement: About 40% of women over 65
years are poor, but only 13% of men (Center for Policy Alterna- tives, 1998).
Page 66 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff: Helps women
Raising the minimum wage would benefit women. LZ.

provides support to the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) on datarelated 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.
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.
NMW benefits women. LSS.

In the year to April 1999 the gap in the average hourly pay of women relative to men narrowed by one
percentage point according to the NES (LPC 2000, para 3.14) and 0.7 percentage points as measured by LFS
(Robinson 2002a). But although there are more low paid women than men, most of the aggregate gender pay
gap is attributable to things like low relative female pay at the top end of the distribution, and the composition
of occupations and skills by gender rather than low female pay per se. So we should not expect a substantial
narrowing of the gender pay gap to have resulted from the introduction of the NMW. Indeed, Robinson
calculates that a 1999 rate as high as 5.00/hour would have only reduced the gender pay gap by three
percentage points. However, as Gregory and Connolly (2001) point out, the gender pay gap is increasingly a
full-time/part-time pay gap and the NMW has played an important role stopping the hourly pay gap between
full- and part-time workers widening further. This is confirmed by Robinson (2002b) who demonstrates that, on
average, the NMW did narrow the gender gap for female part-time employees but had less effect on the gap
between full-time male and female employees.
Page 67 of 141
Negative Evidence
Page 68 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg: Employers rights
Employers Rights
Minimum wage laws are immoral because they coerce employers. LZ.
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/
Minimum wage laws are unethical because they, like other employment legislation such as affirmative
action, introduce government force into employment relationships which should be based on voluntary
trade between employers and employees. Businesses should be free to hire whom they choose and
negotiate pay based on the prospective employees value to the business. The employees are free to reject
the offers and to seek work with other companies that value more highly what they have to offer. Or, if the
employees do not have much to offer, they are free to upgrade their skills through further training.
Being able to follow what Ayn Rand termed the Trader Principleto trade value for value for mutual benefit
and by mutual consentis in the interest of both companies and employees. By hiring and compensating
employees based on their value, companies are able to be as productive as possible and maximize their
long-term profitability. This is in the self-interest of companies, in other words, their owners. (The fact
that some companies choose to hire employees based on irrational principles such as racial discrimination, does
not diminish the value of the Trader Principle. Companies not hiring on the basis of competence and
productivity will suffer the consequence of lower competitiveness and will be forced out of business.)
Page 69 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Minimum wage laws just enforce moral outsourcing. LZ.

Houston, WW. "Bad Welfare." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 19 July 2013.
Web. 08 Aug. 2014.
<http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/07/living-wage-laws>.
As Jason Brennan, a philosopher at Georgetown, puts it, "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". If the value of a worker's labour is
less to her employer than the cost of a reasonable standard of living, why should the employer be on the
hook for the difference? Subsidising the worker, to bring her up to a certain baseline minimum, counts as
a subsidy to the employer only if we think that was the duty of business all alongto pay workers not
only a wage commensurate with the market value of their labour, but also sufficient to finance a life of a
certain dignity and security. Mr Brennan goes on (using the example of Bob, a McBurger employee): 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.
This evidence shows that a living wage is morally unacceptable because it forces employers to be
responsible for more than they ought to be responsible for. This argument is pretty good because it
means that employers are morally obligated to justly compensate their employees, but arent responsible
for anything other than that.
Page 70 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
There is no moral obligation to pay more than is justly owed. LZ.

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.
<http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2013/07/against-the-living-wagesubsidyarguments/>.
A question about living wage arguments. Suppose a homeless person offers to squeegee my car window while
Im stopped at an intersection. Suppose washing my window will take 60 seconds. Suppose that having my
window washed is worth very little to meId lose money on the transaction if I paid more than 10 cents.
However, suppose that a living wage amounts to $30/hr. Am I morally obligated (not out of duties of
beneficence, but out of justice) to pay him 50 cents, and thus lose 40 cents on the transaction?
Thus argument goes with the argument above about moral outsourcing, as it shows a practical example
about how moral outsourcing is morally nonsense.
We are saddling the employers with something that isnt their responsibility. LZ.
Worstall, Tom [Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute.]. "The Moral Case Against
Raising The Minimum Wage." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 6 Mar. 2014. Web. 03 Dec.
2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/03/06/the-moral-case-againstraising-the-minimum-wage/>.
Who is it that is determining the value of low here as in low wages? Its not the market itself which is an
entirely amoral calculator of what things, people and their labour are worth. Its not employers who are simply
responding to the markets in front of them. Theres enough people willing to work at $7.75 an hour to fill the
jobs that pay that rate, this is something that is neither moral nor immoral, its something that just is. The people
who are determining this value of low are us, the citizenry at large. That is, were all saying, collectively and
through the political system, that we think there are certain basics which any one of our fellow citizens should
be able to afford or do. In the case of SNAP its a certain standard of nutrition. If their activities (or
unemployment, or disability, or any other reason) mean that theyre not able to afford this standard then we
believe, again collectively as the citizenry, that they should be able to have this certain standard of nutrition
anyway.
Excellent, thats neither something nor an ambition that I have any problem with. Indeed I think its a
desirable part of a decent society, after all, we are all, collectively, rich enough and more to be able to
guarantee certain minimums to the less fortunate among us. However, heres where the moral point
comes in. If its us demanding that these standards must be met then it falls on us, the people doing the
demanding, to be the people doing the paying.
Page 71 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
After all, demanding that everyone gets to eat but also demanding that that guy over there has to pay for
it and dont touch my wallet isnt a particularly moral action.
Yet that is indeed what the original argument above is. Yes, we agree that people should have an income
large enough to be able to eat properly. But dont come and get it out of my taxes through SNAP, make the
people who employ low skill labour have it taken out of their incomes instead. For that again is indeed what the
argument here is. That the shareholders in WalMart, or the Mom and Pop sandwich operation employing
minimum wage workers, should see some of their profits being sent off, instead, into higher incomes for those
workers. We are, by trying to tackle this problem through a higher minimum wage insisting that it is
other people who must pay for our heartfelt moral position: that people should have enough to eat.
If we as a society are demanding minimum standards, then society should pay, not the
employers. LZ.
Worstall, Tom [Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute.]. "The Moral Case Against
Raising The Minimum Wage." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 6 Mar. 2014. Web. 03 Dec.
2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/03/06/the-moral-case-againstraising-the-minimum-wage/>.
And thus we come to my position, one that many will find rather odd. Ive no problem at all with, indeed
welcome, the idea that theres a certain minimum that all in our society should share. But this argument that a
rise in the minimum wage would be a good idea because it would reduce the costs of in-work benefits is, to me,
entirely the wrong way around. Precisely because we insist upon these minimum standards it should be us
that pay for them through our taxes. Rather than raise the minimum wage and dump the costs of those
standards on other peoples wallets rather than our own.
Page 72 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
NMW ineffective due to employer backlash. LSS.

Croucher, Richard, and Geoff White. "Enforcing A National Minimum Wage." Policy
Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
As mentioned earlier, the Governments approach to enforcing the minimum wage has been based on one where
a relatively soft inspection regime is coupled to an expectation that workers will take action themselves to
enforce their rights through the courts. There are theoretical problems with this approach, even at the legislative
level. First, the theory assumes that the regulatory agency completes the regulatory cycle by ensuring that the
outcomes required by law actually occur. However, it is already evident that this is not the case here since COs
do not collect the arrears of pay themselves; rather it is the responsibility of employers to make good any
arrears. There is no mechanism for ensuring that these arrears are paid and, if so, whether the correct amounts
have been paid. Second, it may be argued, as the TUC does, that the range of sanctions available (outside of
criminal sanctions) are in fact inadequate as a deterrent to rogue employers (Low Pay Commission, 2005). A
third problem arises in practice: even if an appropriate range of sanctions to apply responsive regulation
theory is largely present in this case, the political context combines with a shortage of regulatory resources to
mean that the provisions at the apex of the pyramid have never been deployed.
Page 73 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg: Employees rights
Employees Rights
Employees should be able to bargain freely without the government. LZ.
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. <http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/minimum-wagecruelest-those-who-cant-find-job>.
The minimum wage violates the principle of freedom because workers are not permitted to work at less
than the politically determined wage rate, even if they are willing to do so to get or retain a joband
employers are prohibited from hiring them. The minimum wage does nothing to increase the productivity of
low-skilled workers. Indeed, it prevents them from acquiring the skills and experience they need to move up the
income ladder. Discouraged workers may then drop out of the workforce and end up on welfare or drugs.
It is better for employees to be able to negotiate freely without the government. LZ.
Being able to freely trade value for value is also in the interest of employees and prospective employees. Being
able to negotiate wages without government-mandated minimums will make unskilled and inexperienced
workers more attractive to employers. This would give job opportunities to young people in particular
and to those with fewer skills in general. Young people are often both inexperienced and unskilled and cannot
compete with older, more experienced and skilled workers when companies are forced to pay both the same
minimum, despite the lower productivity of the less experienced and less skilled young workers. The youth
unemployment rates (for 15 to 24-year olds) in the developed worldtypically at least twice as high as the rates
for the adult populationattest to that reality. (Although many in the youth age group go to school or work
part-time, the twice-as-high unemployment rates cannot be attributed to that alone but reflect the barrier to
youth employment created by the minimum wage laws.)
Page 74 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Governments intervening in the market means less productivity. LZ.

The second reason why the ability to negotiate wages freely without government interference is in the
interest of employees and prospective employees is that it unleashes businesses to maximize their
productivity. This translates into more wealth being created and invested into further production, which
means more job opportunities, more demand for laborand higher wages and higher standard for
living. When businesses are free to create wealth, the economy prospers and the labor market is healthy.
Should an employer decide to pay lower wages than employees deserve, based on their productivity, the
employees can either negotiate for an increase in pay, or to find another job.
In minority of case, NMW was secured for workers. LSS.

Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
Overall, a minority of workers in our sample secured their legal rights in full and without detriment via HMRC
involvement; though some of these detriments were lawful, many were not and in the case of dismissal because
of breach of anonymity the detriment was serious. For workers, therefore, the decision to involve the official
enforcement process has to take account of this risk; in other words, it is an on balance decision.
Confidentiality breaches on behalf of government hurts workers. LSS.

Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
Confidentiality for those claiming the minimum wage is a major issue. In two cases, workers claimed they were
sacked because HMRC had broken confidentiality. In three other cases, workers reported that their names had
been revealed without their consent. Though there may be alternative explanations for these workers assertions,
for example because the employer was able to identify them from information other than that supplied by a CO,
they insisted that the CO had revealed their name to the employer. Dismissals under these circumstances are
prima facie unlawful and the COs should have advised the workers of their rights and applied HMRC policy of
referring the workers involved to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) but appear not to
have done so.
Page 75 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Effects of confidentiality breaches are severe. LSS.

Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
Workers reported a higher proportion of negative outcomes. Approximately half of those still working for the
same employer said that their employer took retaliatory action against them. In some cases, they were given
work that others were reluctant to do, in others they experienced what one worker respondent described as a
bad atmosphere. Some workers who left their employer did so because they anticipated just such a negative
employer reaction, handed in their notice and made the claim subsequently. In short, they left in order to make a
claim.
Confidentiality is important for employees. LSS.

Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
As noted above, employers could feel that complaints were a breach of trust. In addition, employers frequently
regard workers contacting HMRC as a breach of the informality that they felt characterised the employment
relationship. Thus, feeling (in the words of one respondent) that they have been shopped, employers invariably
demand to know the complainants identity. Employees were in several cases unaware of their right to
anonymity. However, the CO may protect employees by replying that cases can arise from spot checks. In
practice, anonymity for workers wishing to continue to work for the same employer is limited, particularly in
tiny firms. COs may try to strengthen their case by asking employees to allow their name to be revealed. The
more time-consuming and often unavailable alternatives for COs are to try to glean information from other
sources or from the employer by reference to their legal powers. If none of these three alternatives brings
results, cases will be difficult to prosecute. If ET cases result, the worker may have to give evidence and be
exposed to cross-examination, and on occasion negative reactions from other employees at Tribunal. In cases
where the worker had left the employer, they frequently experienced difficulties in gaining information from
other workers reluctant to testify at an ET against their current employer.
Page 76 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg: Economy
Economy
The best studies show that increasing the minimum wage hurts employment. LZ.
Cahn, David, and Jack Cahn. "Popular Does Not Mean Practical: The Case Against the
Federal Minimum Wage." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 Apr.
2014. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-cahn/populardoes-not-mean-pra_b_5128311.html>.
Indeed, economists who have crunched historical minimum wage data have found that raising the minimum
wage generally has negative effects on employment. A meta-analysis of 102 minimum wage studies conducted
by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 67 percent of studies found negative employment
effects, 25 percent found no effect, and only 8 percent found a positive employment effect. Of the 33 most
robust studies, 85 percent of these point to negative employment effects. Surveys of businesses tell the same
story. According to the Wall Street Journal a $10 minimum wage would cause 54 percent of employers to
reduce hiring and 34 percent to begin immediate layoffs. Overall, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds
that this would cost the US between five hundred thousand and one million existing jobs, while the American
Action Forum estimates its would cost the US 2.3 millions new jobs per year. It's no wonder then that
economists David Newmark, Mark Schweitzer and William Wascher found that a higher minimum wage results
in a net increase in the proportion of poor families, with the "losers" outnumbering the "winners."
Raising the minimum wage prevents entry level workers from getting a job. LZ.
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. <http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/minimum-wagecruelest-those-who-cant-find-job>.
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.
Page 77 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg: Economy
Raising the minimum wage makes it harder for inexperienced workers to find jobs. LZ.
Adams, Mark, Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
"Raising the Minimum Wage Hurts the Poor." US News. U.S.News & World
Report, 11 Mar. 2013. Web. 08 Aug. 2014.
<http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/03/11/raisingthe-minimum-wage-wont-help-the-poor>.
Minimum wage workers tend be young and unskilled. Less than half of workers under the age of 25 are
currently employed and many rely on low paying opportunities to get their first break. The majority will earn a
raise within a year, but they currently lack the experience and skill to compete for higher paying jobs. Raising
the minimum wage makes it harder for these inexperienced workers to find a job, because businesses will
either eliminate positions or choose to hire someone with more experience at the higher mandated wage.
Minimum wage jobs could also be a pathway to retraining for workers facing a mismatch between their
skills and available openings. A higher minimum wage would limit such opportunities, and that's particularly
dangerous during this historically slow recovery.
An increase in the minimum wage would cost over half a million jobs. LZ.
Miron, Jeffrey. "CBO's Minimum Wage Report." Cato Institute. The Cato Institute, 20
Feb. 2014. Web. 08 Aug. 2014. <http://www.cato.org/blog/cbos-minimum-wagereportthe-increased-earnings-low-wage-workers-resulting-higher-minimum-wage>
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.
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Neg: Economy
Increasing the minimum wage reduces employment in two ways. LZ.

According to conventional economic analysis, increasing the minimum wage reduces employment in two ways.
First, higher wages increase the cost to employers of producing goods and services. The employers pass some
of those increased costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices, and those higher prices, in turn, lead the
consumers to purchase fewer of the goods and services. The employers consequently produce fewer goods and
services, so they hire fewer workers. That is known as a scale effect, and it reduces employment among both
low-wage workers and higher-wage workers. Second, a minimum-wage increase raises the cost of lowwage
workers relative to other inputs that employers use to produce goods and services, such as machines,
technology, and more productive higher-wage workers. Some employers respond by reducing their use of lowwage workers and shifting toward those other inputs. That is known as a substitution effect, and it reduces
employment among low-wage workers but increases it among higher-wage workers.
An increase in the minimum wage would force costs and prices to go up. LZ.
Miron, Jeffrey. "CBO's Minimum Wage Report." Cato Institute. The Cato Institute, 20
Feb. 2014. Web. 08 Aug. 2014. <http://www.cato.org/blog/cbos-minimum-wagereportthe-increased-earnings-low-wage-workers-resulting-higher-minimum-wage>
And the minimum wages negative effects do not stop at its perverse impact on the distribution of income. The
minimum wage forces employers to substitute higher-wage workers or capital for low-wage labor, raising
costs and therefore prices. The minimum wage perpetuates the notion that evil employers, rather than
low skill, explain low wages. And the minimum wage pretends to fix a problem without imposing any costs,
except that the costs are merely hidden, not avoided.
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Neg: Economy
Macroeconomic analysis shows that the economy would decline and jobs would be lost if the
minimum wage was increased. LZ.
Sherk, James, and John L. Ligon. "Unprecedented Minimum-Wage Hike Would Hurt
Jobs and the Economy." The Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation, 5 Dec.
2013. Web. 08 Aug. 2014.
<http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/12/unprecedented-minimum-wagehike-would-hurt-jobs-and-the-economy>.
Proponents of minimum-wage increases argue that increasing minimum-wage workers pay would boost their
spending and stimulate the economy, offsetting potential job losses.[13] Macroeconomic modeling does not
support these claims. The Heritage Foundation used the IHS Global Insight macroeconomic model
which many financial institutions, manufacturers, and government agencies use to make economic
forecaststo estimate the consequences of increasing the minimum wage. The Global Insight modeling
accounts for minimum-wage workers higher pay, employer reactions to higher labor costs, and price increases
passed onto consumers. The model shows that increasing the minimum wage would hurt the economy on
netreal GDP would decline by $42 billion in 2017 relative to the baseline. Moreover, by 2017 the
legislation would reduce employment by 287,000 jobs annually.[14]
An increase in the minimum wage would cost many jobs. LZ.

Dunkelberg, William. "Why Raising The Minimum Wage Kills Jobs." Forbes. Forbes
Magazine, 31 Dec. 2012. Web. 08 Aug. 2014.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/williamdunkelberg/2012/12/31/why-raising-theminimum-wage-kills-jobs/>.
As a poverty program, raising the minimum wage is like killing flies with a shotgun, not very well targeted.
About 60% of the officially poor dont work, so the only thing raising the minimum wage does for them is to
make it harder for them to get a job if they ever decide they want one. Workers must bring at least as much
value to the firm as they are paid or the firm will fail and all jobs will be lost (no GM bailouts are available to
our 6 million small employers that employ half of our private sector workforce). Raising the minimum wage
raises the hurdle a worker must cross to justify being hired. It is estimated that less than 15% of the total
increase in wages resulting from an increase in the minimum will go to people below the poverty line and less
than a third of those receiving the minimum wage are families below the poverty line. Most minimum wage
workers are from above median income families. So, most of the people benefiting from the minimum
wage are not the intended targets of the anti-poverty aspect of raising the minimum wage. As a jobs
program, raising the minimum wage is a real loser. Congress raised the minimum wage 10.6% in July,
2009 (know of anyone else getting a raise then?). In the ensuring 6 months, nearly 600,000 teen jobs
disappeared, even with nearly 4% growth in the economy, this compared to a loss of 250,000 jobs in the
first half of the year as GDP growth declined by 4% Why? When you raise the price of anything, people
take less of it, including labor. The unemployment rate for teens remains unacceptably high. Workers of all
ages that are relatively unskilled are adversely impacted by this policy.
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Neg: Economy
An increase in the minimum wage would not help most people in poverty. LZ.
The increased earnings for low-wage workers resulting from the higher minimum wage would total $31 billion,
by CBOs estimate. However, those earnings would not go only to low-income families, because many lowwage workers are not members of low-income families. Just 19 percent of the $31 billion would accrue to
families with earnings below the poverty threshold, whereas 29 percent would accrue to families earning
more than three times the poverty threshold, CBO estimates.
Living wage creates a wage floor which harms the economy. BG

There are supporters and critics of the idea of a living wage and its effects on the economy. The critics argue
that implementing a living wage establishes a wage floor, which will harm the economy. They believe that
companies will choose not to hire the same number of employees at such high levels of pay. This creates higher
unemployment, resulting in deadweight loss, as people who would work for less than a living wage are no
longer offered employment.
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Neg: Economy
Small businesses are harmed in the process because price increases in wage to workers
disincentives actual start ups. SBH.
Scott Shane [professor at Case western university] Listen to Small Business: Don't
Increase the Minimum Wage May 25 2012
Raising the minimum wage is shaping up to be an important issue this year, with several state legislatures
considering increases and other states putting the issue on the November ballot. For years, labor leaders have
been urging the U.S. Congress to raise the federal minimum wage. Small business associations have pushed
back, opposing any increase. Small business is right -- not just for itself, but for the U.S. A higher minimum
wage will cut employment, reduce access to the entry-level positions that lead to better jobs, increase poverty
and motivate teenagers to leave school. Lets start with why the minimum wage is bad for small business. Put
simply, it raises the cost of hiring at companies that employ low-wage workers. Faced with higher labor costs,
these businesses can try to raise prices, lay off workers or cut their profit margins. Competitive pressures
usually prevent them from boosting prices. That leaves them with the unpleasant choice of either cutting jobs or
accepting lower profits. Employees, of course, will be hurt if companies cut the number of low-wage jobs
because of a higher minimum wage. Wages depend on the value that people produce. If government tells
businesses they have to pay people more than that value, they will get rid of unproductive workers. In fact,
economists estimate that each 10 percent rise in the minimum wage leads to a 1 to 2 percent decline in the
employment of low-skilled workers.(pg.1)
UK NMW only impacted 6-7% of workers. LSS.

Dickens and Manning (2002) conclude that the NMW has had a detectable impact on the wage distribution and
there is strong compliance with the NMW, but only 67% of employees were directly affected by the NMW
and that it had virtually no impact on the pay of workers not directly affected. This latter point is double
edged. From a macroeconomic perspective it is good that there were no spillovers because this limits the
inflationary (and therefore interest rate) consequences of introducing the NMW. But spillovers, which raise
wages for other low-paid workers, would be welcome on distributional grounds. Similarly, using information
from the autumn 1999 BHPS, Stewart and Swaffield (2002) find that relatively few workers who did not have
their pay increased to comply with the NMW believed that their pay had been increased to maintain
differentials providing limited evidence that there had been little in the way of knock-on wage effects
caused by the introduction of the NMW.
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Neg: Economy
Living wages campaign suffers same ills as predecessors; destined to fail. LSS.
The living wage campaign suffers from many of the problems of its predecessors. It is, in essence, a demand
that the wage system be abandoned in the process of provisioning a family. Clearly, the living wage campaign
has attempted to present its demands in a non-patriarchal environment, particularly with its emphasis on the
income needs of the single-parent family.
Building a set of social institutions that make the labor market take in account the type and size of family before
setting wage rates and benefit packages would be complex to say the least. Indeed, the experience of the late
twentieth century is that real wage rates often fall, even in an environment of rising real incomes.
While currently not politically viable, the living wage campaign probably is headed in the wrong direction.
Rather than emphasizing self-sufficiency, something the labor market will never provide semi-skilled
employees, movements for incomes based on basic family needs probably need to emphasize social subsidies
that are not means tested and are available for all families. In particular, work-related benefits-from health
coverage to child care--probably need to be separated from the workplace altogether, provided instead as part of
the social contract that work-based society has with its families.
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Neg: Government coercion bad
Government Coercion Bad

Even if raising the minimum wage is moral, having the government force it is wrong. LZ.
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.
Imple
The only way for workers to benefit from living wage laws is if they are covered by laws that are implemented
and enforced. If few workers are covered and/or policies are not actually implemented or enforced, there is little
reason to think that workers will gain. Regarding implementation and enforcement, there have been problems
for living wage ordinances from the very beginning. Even after adopting the first living wage ordinance in
Baltimore, it took many months, rallies, public hearings, complaints, and fines before some firms started to
obey the law. As Stephanie Luce has documented, major post-passage struggles have been required in several
cities before the law was implemented. Based on extensive interviews with city administrators, living wage
advocates, and review of newspaper reporting on living wage laws, Luce considers more than half of all living
wage ordinances to have been only narrowly implemented25 (Luce 2005, 45). As she explains: In some
places, implementation seems to simply fall through the cracks: there is no single person in charge and no one
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Neg: Government coercion bad
who knows much about the ordinance. There are other cities in which the staff is incompetent, ineffective, or
personally opposed to the ordinances. There are also cities where the administration is outwardly opposed to the
ordinance and works to stall implementation, water down, or repeal the laws. Finally, some city councilors
and/or administrators continue to publicly support living wage ordinances but make it easy for employers to
receive waivers or exemptions from coverage. (Luce 2005, 46) In their study of the Los Angeles living wage
ordinance, Sander and Lokey found that enforcement, compliance, and discipline were all problems. Firms did
not submit required paperwork, site visits were not performed, and no action was taken against contractors
violating the policy. In their 18-month review of the ordinance, Sander and Lokey considered the discipline
process to be toothless, and one of several implementation problems limiting the effect of the ordinance
(Sander and Lokey 1998, 4). Sander and Lokey did indicate, however, that by late 1998 most implementation
issues were improving. More recent work by LAANE indicates that, as of 2001-02, virtually all firms surveyed
were in compliance with the wage requirements, but there may be problems with compliance with other
provisions.
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Neg: Capitalism kritik
Wage Slavery/Capitalism Kritik

Living wages normalizes the wage system and perpetuate wage slavery. This perpetuates
capitalist ideologies. SBH.
Richard Wolff 2006 [Richard Wolff has published several books critiquing capitalism.] AntiSlavery and Anti-Capitalism, http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.1/wolff.htm
Workers and capitalists thus become systemically unequal in ability, competence, and confidence. The
inequalities anchored in capitalist production usually carry over to make the politics and cultures of
capitalist societies similarly unequal. The absence of democracy in production undermines efforts to establish
it in politics. Capitalist exploitation would be difficult to sustain if it had to be imposed on workers resentful of
their exploitation and its social effects. Hence, as with all other exploitative systems (e.g., feudalism and
slavery), theories are advanced and disseminated by capitalisms organic intellectuals that make exploitation
invisible and so function to deny its existence. Such theories parallel their counterparts in slavery and
feudalism where it was argued that slaves and serfs were not exploited but were rather protected (saved
from despair, poverty, and death), loved like children, culturally uplifted, and so on by their lords and
masters.
Today, the hegemonic economic theory, called neoclassical economics for historical reasons, serves to
make exploitation invisible. Building on the early formulation of such ideas by Adam Smith, neoclassical
economics casts production as a process in which no surplus gets produced, nor appropriated, nor distributed.
Instead, production is an harmonious collaboration: workers bring their labor, landlords their land, and
capitalists their capital. All three contribute to production and all three share in its fruits according to their
contributions: the workers share is wages, the landlords is rent, and the capitalists is profit. It is a world of
fairness and harmony. The inability of workers to contribute capital is explained by their failure to save out of
their incomes and their resulting lack of capital to contribute to production. The capital in the hands of
capitalists is not the fruit of exploitation, of taking a surplus from workers, but rather the fruit of their own
virtuous frugality.
Capitalism fairly rewards individuals for the contributions each brings to production. More than that,
capitalism represents an engine of wealth production, economic growth, and thus the possibility for everyone to
become rich. Those who have failed to do so should chiefly blame themselves. To blame capitalism is not a
valid social critique but rather the whining of losers. Neoclassical economic theory, among other hegemonic
sets of ideas, has worked well to support and justify capitalism and undermine the appeal of Marxist economic
theory. One modality of its working has been the sedimentation into the popular consciousness of the notion of
the wage. It strikes vast numbers of people as somehow obvious, natural, and necessary that production be
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organized around a deal struck between a wage payer and wage receiver. And this is all the more remarkable in
as much as the vast bulk of human history displays economic systems without wages (neither serfs, nor slaves,
nor individuals who work alone, nor most collective work systems have used wages). Capitalisms history is in
part the history of the deepening conceptual hegemony of the wage. Thus, for example, the individual peasant
or craftsperson working alone has had to be renamed a self-employed person to revision a non-wage
production system as if it were waged.
Naturalizing the wage concept works to naturalize capitalist relations of production, the
employer/employee relation, not as one among alternative production systems but as somehow intrinsic
to production itself. Workers, trade unions, and intellectuals often cannot imagine production without
wages and hence wage payers juxtaposed to wage earners. This helps to make capitalism itself appear as
necessary and eternal much as the parallel theories celebrating feudalism and slavery performed the
same function for those systems of production. The naturalization of the wage system helps support the
notion that the fundamental goal of workers organization must be to raise wages.
Thus, no surprise attaches to the fact, these days, that one widespread kind of social criticism concentrates on
softening capitalisms negative impacts on workers and the larger society. It seeks to raise workers wages and
benefits and to make governments limit capitalists rapaciousness and the social costs of their competition. In
the US, this is what liberals do: from the minimalist oppositions within the Democratic Party to the demands
of social democrats and many radicals for major wage increases, major government interventions, and so on.
What always frustrates liberals and radicals is the difficulty of achieving these improved workers conditions
and the insecurity and temporariness of whatever improvements they do achieve. Today they bemoan yet
another roll-back of improvements, namely those won under FDRs New Deal, Kennedys New Frontier, and so
on.
You could use this as a link for a kritik that criticizes capitalism.
Page 87 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
With capitalism comes exploitation and other bad impacts. SBH.

Wolff, Richard. [Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. PhD in Economics from
Yale.] Anti-slavery and Anti-Capitalism December 15, 2006.
For Marx, the crux of the issue is that capitalism entails exploitation. A large part of the population
(productive laborers) produces a surplus that is appropriated and distributed by a small part of the
population (capitalists). In capitalist enterprises, workers are hired only if the value that their labor adds
(to the raw materials, tools, and equipment their work uses up) exceeds the value paid to them as wages
for doing that labor. That excess value the surplus belongs to the capitalists since they own the
outputs of production, sell them in markets, and thereby realize the surplus value in them. In the
preferred language of capitalism, that surplus value comprises the profits of the capitalists, their
private property to dispense in their own interests. The less wages that capitalists must pay to workers, the
more surplus they get for themselves. Exploitation thus situates tension, hostility, and conflict in the heart
of production. Capitalists and workers are set into oppositional struggles. Moreover, those struggles
ramify and provoke competitive struggles among capitalists and among workers. Alongside the outputs
of capitalist production yielding impressive incomes and accumulating wealth, there are also the
countless, ramifying social costs of the conflicts and competitions.
You can use this as an impact to a capitalism kritik.
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The way to remove this capitalist ideology is through taking sides in the ongoing class
struggle. SBH.
Stephen Tumino [English Professor at Pitt] Pierre Bourdieu as New Global Intellectual
for Capital, The Red Critique 6, September/October,
http://redcritique.org/SeptOct02/pierrebourdieuasnewglobalintellectualforcapital.ht
m
It is only such a scientific knowledge of social totality as provided by classical Marxism that can produce
an understanding not only of the effects, but of the causes of inequality in capitalism and therefore of
what needs to be done to change it. By merely contesting the political dominance of capital and its
symbolic mystique through ethical performances of symbolic disinvestments in "cultural capital" while
failing to provide a scientific (i.e., materially causal) knowledge of the social, the figure of the new global
intellectual in Bourdieu's writings reinscribes the ruling ideas that as a totality make cultural changes at
the level of the superstructure more important than meeting the need for what Marx calls "theory as a
material force" (Reader 60)"theory [] capable of seizing the masses" because it "grasp[s] things by the
root" (60).
The "root" of social inequality is not "knowledge" but "labor". The differences in knowledges available in a
society reflect differences in labor, especially the amount of time people have after performing the socially
necessary labor required for them to live. For the majority this time is mostly spent in performing surplus-labor
for the capitalist who realizes a profit from it. This class division of labor between the many who are wageslaves for the few who own the means of production will not change with changes in lifestyle and knowledge,
by the voluntary sacrifice of the privileges that come with performing intellectual labor for example. It will only
change when the workers "expropriate the expropriators" (Marx Capital Vol. 1 929) and form "an association,
in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" ("Manifesto" 506).
Because of the high technical level of development of the productive forces such a revolution presupposes
workers who have already become class conscious, i.e., "raised themselves to the level of comprehending
theoretically the historical movement [of class society] as a whole". In other words, the historical materialist
theorization of class consciousness in Marxism presupposes that "the time [...] of revolutions carried through by
small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past" (Reader 570) as capitalism itself has
already produced a proletarian vanguard, that "most advanced and resolute section" ("Manifesto" 497) of "the
proletariat [that] is already conscious of its historic task and is continually working to bring this
consciousness to full clarity" (Reader 135) in the social movements.
What is required of the intellectual because of these conditions is not to perform exemplary actions but to
take sides in the ongoing class struggle at the level of theory where, "The only choice iseither bourgeois
or socialist ideology [for] in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or an
above class ideology" (Lenin What Is To Be Done? 41).
You can use this as an alternative in a capitalism kritik.
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Capitalism causes a multitude of bad impacts. SBH.

James Herod [Columbia U graduate and political activist] Getting Free 2007
Beyond these two basic awarenesses, there is the recognition of the linkages between our many miseries
and the wage slave system. This knowledge is more difficult to acquire, mainly because capitalists, and their
public relations people, take such pains to blame the sufferings of the world on anything and everything
other than their own practices. If there is starvation in Bangladesh, its because there are too many people
and not because agricultural self-sufficiency has been destroyed by capitalist world markets. If the oceans
are dying from oil tanker flushes, this is a shame, but its really no ones fault; its just the price we must pay
for progress and civilization. If millions are living in abject poverty in the shantytowns of third world
cities, there is nothing unusual about this; its just part of the worldwide process of urbanization they never
mention that governments and corporations have seized the peasants lands, forcing them to leave their homes.
If cities are filling up with the homeless, its because these people are lazy and wont look for work, and
not because there aren't enough jobs for everyone and rents are sky-high. The list of such subterfuges is
endless. The truth is that most of the suffering in the world now is directly attributable to capitalists. If it
were not for capitalists, most of the illness in the world could be eliminated, as well as most of the hunger,
ignorance, homelessness, environmental destruction, congestion, warfare, crime, insecurity, waste,
boredom, loneliness, and so forth. Even much of the suffering caused by hurricanes, floods, droughts, and
earthquakes can be laid at the feet of capitalists because capitalists prevent us from preparing for and
responding to these disasters as a community, in an intelligent way. And recently, capitalists are to blame
for the increased severity of some of these events due to global warming, which capitalists have caused.
Unless youre already convinced, I know youre not going to believe these bald claims. But others have
documented the linkages between these various evils and the profit system, if you wish to study their works.
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Neg: EITC counterplan
EITC Counterplan
What EITC is. SBH.
Marr et. al. [Chuck Marr is the Director of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities. ; Chye-Ching Huang is a tax policy analyst with the Centers
Federal Fiscal Policy Team, where she focuses on the fiscal and economic effects of
federal tax policy. ; Sherman joined the Center as Senior Researcher in March
2004.] April 15, 2014 "Earned Income Tax Credit Promotes Work, Encourages
Childrens Success at School, Research Finds For Children, Research Indicates that
Work, Income, and Health Benefits Extend Into Adulthood"
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3793
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which went to 27.9 million low- and moderate-income working families
in 2011, provides work, income, educational, and health benefits to its recipients and their children, a
substantial body of research shows. In addition, recent ground-breaking research suggests, the EITCs benefits
extend well beyond the limited time during which families typically claim the credit. The research indicates
that children of EITC recipients, for instance, do better in school, are likelier to attend college, and earn more as
adults. The Child Tax Credit (CTC), a related credit thats designed to help offset the cost of child-rearing, also
plays a major role in helping low-income working families. (pg. 1)
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How the EITC and CDC work. SBH.

The EITC, a federal tax credit for low- and moderate-income working families and individuals, is designed to
encourage and reward work, offset federal payroll and income taxes, and raise living standards. To claim the
credit, a taxpayer must have earnings from a job. The EITC is refundable, meaning that if it exceeds a lowwage workers federal income tax liability, the Internal Revenue Service refunds the balance to the taxpayer.
The EITCs primary recipients are working parents with children, though a small EITC is available to
working adults without dependent children. The credit rises with earned income until it reaches a
maximum (which varies by the number of qualified children) and then phases out as income rises
further.[2] For 2013, the phase-outs begin at about $17,550[3] for single filers and about $22,900 for
married filers, and the average size of the credit is expected to be $2,828 for a family with children
and $280 for a family without children.[4]
The CTC, which provides taxpayers up to $1,000 for each of their dependent children under age 17,
is designed to help families offset the costs of raising children.[5] Unlike the EITC, the CTC is not
targeted on low- and moderate-income families but extends to middle-income and most uppermiddle-income families.[6]
The CTC is partially refundable: a family whose credit exceeds its federal income tax liability can
receive a refund for the rest of the credit but the refund cannot exceed 15 percent of the amount by
which the familys earnings exceed a minimum earnings threshold, which is now $3,000. The lowincome (i.e., partially refundable) part of the CTC is particularly beneficial to lower-wage workers. (pg.
1)
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The EITC works to increase productivity, decreases how many people need welfare, etc. SBH.
Marr et. al. [Chuck Marr is the Director of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities. ; Chye-Ching Huang is a tax policy analyst with the Centers Federal
Fiscal Policy Team, where she focuses on the fiscal and economic effects of federal tax
policy. ; Sherman joined the Center as Senior Researcher in March 2004.] April 15, 2014
"Earned Income Tax Credit Promotes Work, Encourages Childrens Success at School,
Research Finds For Children, Research Indicates that Work, Income, and Health Benefits
Extend Into Adulthood" http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3793
The EITC significantly increases the work effort of its recipients, according to substantial research over
the past 15 years.[7] EITC expansions between 1984 and 1996 accounted for more than half of the large
increase in employment among single mothers during that period, researchers found.[8] The most
significant gains in employment attributable to the EITC occurred among mothers with young children
and mothers with low education.[9] The EITC is particularly effective at encouraging work among single
mothers working for low wages,[10] and is considered among the most effective policies for increasing the
work and earnings of female-headed families. The EITC expansions of the 1990s appear to be the most
important single factor in explaining why female family heads increased their employment over 19931999,[11] University of Chicago economist Jeffrey Grogger has concluded. Those expansions, he found,
actually had a larger effect in increasing employment among single mothers than the 1996 welfare law. (See
Figure 1.)
In addition, women who were eligible to benefit the most from those EITC expansions apparently had
higher wage growth in later years than other similarly situated women.[12] Moreover, by boosting the
employment and earnings of working-age women, the EITC also boosts their Social Security retirement
benefits, which should result in lower poverty among them in old age. [13] (Social Security eligibility and
benefit levels are based on how much one works and earns.)By boosting employment among single
mothers, the EITC also produces large declines in the numbers of families that receive cash welfare
assistance. The EITC expansions of the 1990s induced more than a half a million families to move from
cash welfare assistance to work, research shows.[14] In fact, the research found, those EITC expansions
likely contributed about as much to the fall in the numbers of female-headed households receiving cash welfare
assistance from 1993 to 1999 as the time limits on cash assistance and other changes under welfare
reform.[15]Nor is there much evidence that when EITC benefits phase down as a familys income rises above
certain levels, workers substantially reduce their work hours.[16] Instead, research shows, the EITC has a
powerful effect in inducing many more workers to enter the labor force and go to work. (pg. 1)
You can use this as solvency for a counterplan (or counter advocacy) that says we should implement
EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) rather a living wage.
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The EITC may improve the health of infants. SBH.

The EITC may improve the health of infants.
Researchers at the University of California at Davis compared changes in birth outcomes for mothers who likely
received the largest increases in their EITCs under the expansions of the 1990s and mothers who likely received
the smallest increases.[17] They found that (1) infants born to mothers who likely received the largest increases
had the greatest improvements in a number of birth indicators, such as fewer incidences of low weight births
and premature births;[18] (2) mothers who likely received the largest increases were likelier to receive prenatal
care, including care before the critical third trimester, and to smoke and drink less during pregnancy; and (3)
changes in health insurance coverage did not seem to be a primary explanation for these improved health
outcomes.[19]
These results mirror a small but promising body of research on the EITCs impact on the health of newly born
infants. Previous studies also found strong associations between EITC expansions and improvements in birth
weight. Those studies also indicated that mothers who received the EITC were less likely to smoke during
pregnancy than similarly situated mothers who did not receive the EITC.[20] (pg. 1)
This could function as an impact to implementing EITC.
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Jan/Feb 2015
EITC boosts childrens education. SBH.

The EITC improves the educational outcomes of children in low-income families throughout their school years,
recent research shows.[21] Research also indicates that the EITC helps children from low- and moderateincome working families get to college, both by boosting their educational performance and by making college
more affordable for families with high-school seniors.
A recent working paper examining data from before and after changes to federal and state EITCs finds that
children receiving larger EITCs tend to do better academically in both the short and long term.[22] Receipt of
larger EITCs is linked to:
Higher test scores, particularly in math. Larger EITCs are linked to improved test scores in the year of
receipt for both elementary and middle-school students.
Higher high-school graduation rates. Receiving a larger EITC in childhood increases the likelihood that a
student will graduate high school or complete his or her general equivalency diploma (GED).
Higher college attendance rates. The larger the EITC a childs family receives, the more likely he or she
will enter college by age 19 or 20.
The paper underscores that the size of these effects is substantial. Moreover, the findings show that the
academic benefits of larger EITCs extend to children of all ages and racial and ethnic groups, with some
suggestive evidence that the benefits are slightly larger for minority children and boys.
This paper adds to an already substantial body of evidence that the EITC boosts school performance:
Researchers who analyzed data for grades 3-8 from a large urban school district and the corresponding U.S. tax
records for families in the district found that additional income from the EITC and CTC leads to significant
increases in students test scores. [23]
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Jan/Feb 2015
Likewise, researchers who studied nearly two decades of data on mothers and their children concluded that
additional income from the EITC raises the combined math and reading test scores of students by large
magnitudes. [24]
Research not directly on the EITC also suggests that income-boosting policies like the EITC boost school
performance. Researchers analyzing ten anti-poverty and welfare-to-work experiments found a consistent
pattern of better school results for low-income children in programs that provided more income. Each $1,000
increase (in 2001 dollars) in annual income the equivalent of a full CTC for one child for two to five
years led to modest but statistically significant increases in young childrens school performance on a number of
measures, including test scores. The researchers noted that their results have important implications for policies
like the EITC that link increases in income to increases in employment.[25] (pg. 1)
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EITC boosts work effort of parents. SBH.

The EITC not only boosts the work effort of parents, particularly single mothers. It extends those
benefits to the next generation, recent research suggests.
Because higher family income from refundable tax credits are associated with higher skills, children in the
family are likelier to earn more as adults.[27] In fact, researchers projected that each dollar of income through
tax credits may increase the real value of the childs future earnings by more than one dollar.
Young children who are raised in lower-income families tended to work less and earn less as adults than
higher-income children raised in otherwise similar circumstances. For children in low-income families, a
$3,000 increase in family income (in 2005 dollars)[28] between a childs prenatal year and fifth birthday
is associated with an average 17 percent increase in annual earnings and an additional 135 hours of work
when the children become adults, compared to similar children whose families do not receive the added
income, researchers have found.[29] (See Figure 3.)
One reason for poorer childrens worse performance, according to an emerging field of research, may be that
the low-income children are more likely to experience poor health as children and in some cases their poor
health carries into adulthood.[30] Thus, children in households that receive the EITC appear likelier to avoid
the early onset of disabilities and other illnesses associated with child poverty, and that apparently increases
their ability to earn more as adults.
In short, studies indicate, young children in low-income families that receive the type of income support that the
EITC and CTC offer perform better in school, on average, and are likelier to be born healthier and grow up to
work more and earn more. When analyzing the costs and benefits of policies such as the Earned Income or
Child Tax Credit, researchers from Harvard and Columbia University advised, policymakers should carefully
consider the potential impacts of these programs on future generations.[31] (pg. 1)
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Jan/Feb 2015
EITC reduces poverty. SBH.

The EITC reduces poverty in two ways: (1) by encouraging work and (2) by supplementing the wages of
low-paid poor or near-poor workers.
Many Americans work for low wages. For example, the food-preparation sector (cooks, servers, dishwashers,
and the like), which employs 11 million people and accounts for about one in every 11 jobs, provided a median
wage of only $9.09 an hour in 2011. A full-time, year-round worker at that wage level would have annual
earnings of $18,180 or 80 percent of the poverty line for a two-adult, two-child family.[32]
For many workers, working substantial hours is not enough to lift them out of poverty.[33] The recent
recession and slow recovery have aggravated the situation. The share of workers paid below-poverty wages
(hourly wages too low to support a family of four at the poverty line even with full-time, year-round work) rose
from 25.5 percent of employed workers in 2009 to 28 percent in 2011.[34] While 60 percent of the jobs lost
during the recession were mid-wage jobs, only 22 percent of the jobs gained during the recovery were midwage jobs, the National Employment Law Project has found in an analysis that goes through the first quarter of
2012.[35] Lower-wage jobs, in contrast, represented 21 percent of the jobs lost during the recession but 58
percent of jobs gained during the recovery.
The share of Americans earning low wages could keep growing even when labor market conditions
improve. Good jobs are not disappearing for everyone, but . . . they are largely disappearing for less-educated
workers,[36] Urban Institute economist Harry Holzer and his coauthors from the National Science Foundation,
the University of Chicago, and the Treasury Department have written.
Meanwhile, policymakers have let the minimum wage erode substantially, especially in the 1980s, and
subsequent increases have not fully offset that erosion. At $7.25 an hour in 2013, the minimum wage is 21
percent below its 1968 level, after adjusting for inflation.[37]
In addition, the median or typical wage paid for half of the ten occupations that the Bureau of Labor
Statistics expects to generate the most new jobs over the period 2012 to 2022 home health aides, food
Page 98 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
preparers, personal care aides, retail salespersons, and janitors and cleaners was below a poverty-level
wage[38] in 2012.[39]
By supplementing the earnings of low-paid workers, nationally[40] the EITC and CTC lifted 10.1 million
people, including 5.3 million children, out of poverty in 2012 under the federal governments new Supplemental
Poverty Measure, which counts non-cash public benefits and refundable tax credit payments as income, as
many analysts favor. Of these 5.3 million children, the EITC alone lifted 3.3 million of them out poverty.[41]
Of the 10.1 million people whom the EITC and CTC lifted out of poverty, improvements in the credits
under the 2009 Recovery Act were responsible for raising about 1.5 million of them above the poverty
line (see Figure 4) about 900,000 people from the CTC improvements and another 600,000 from the
EITC improvements.[42](pg. 1)
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Neg: Minorities and youth
Harms Minorities/Youth
Huge disparities in how much women of color are paid and others. SBH.
Shetal Vohra-Gupta [PhD; Research Associate] 11/1/12 Women of Color and Minimum
Wage: A Policy of Racial, Gender, and Economic Discrimination
A stagnant or unchanging minimum wage disproportionately harms women, especially women of color, because they are
more likely to be minimum wage earners than men. In 2011, women, who made up 47 percent of the total labor force,
constituted 62 percent of minimum wage workers, while men only represented 38 percent (Madland & Bunker, 2012)
(See Figure 2). The wage gap places women of color at a greater disadvantage, since African American and Hispanic
women make $0.64 and $0.56, respectively, for every dollar white men earn. This disparity is concerning since femaleled households with children has increased by approximately 10% in the last decade (U.S. Census, 2010), and more
families than ever before depend on women as primary breadwinners. Within that group, the most marginalized are
single mothers (Shapiro, 2004). Policymakers
attribute the difficulty in reducing family poverty to falling wages among low-skilled workers and increasing rates of
single parenting (Berlin, 2007).
Living wage harms minorities and youth of color. It removes the chance to learn and become
better in a field. SBH.
Bridget Bush [Bridget Bush is a Louisville attorney ] 9/2/14 http://www.courierjournal.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/09/02/raising-minimum-wage-hurtswomen-minorities/14955629/
Consider, moreover, who would get cut. Of the half-million jobs that the CBO projects would disappear if the
Obama increase is enacted, two-thirds belong to women. The layoffs and lost opportunity for work that a
minimum wage hike would cause therefore would hit women disproportionately hard. Minority youths who
already have nearly double the unemployment rates of white youths likewise would suffer
disproportionately. Indeed, the unintended consequence of Democrats raising the minimum wage produces
outcomes that if caused by Republicans would be slammed as sexist and racist.
Increasing the minimum wage distracts from the more serious issue of how to improve workers' skills so that
entry level jobs are the first step in long, productive careers, and not a purgatory where the unskilled languish
until the next time Democrats decide to give them a raise with other people's money.
Page 100 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Black and Hispanic teens are more likely to become idle. SBH.
Mark Turner and Berna Demiralp 2000 [Mark Turner - Johns Hopkins University,
Berna Demiralp - Johns Hopkins University ] Higher Minimum Wages Harm
Minority and Inner-City Teens
However, this is not the end of the story. We also investigate the differential effects of the minimum wage
increase on subgroups by race and urban status. Differential analysis reveals important differences in the way
that black and Hispanic, and non-black, non-Hispanic teens would be affected by the proposed minimum wage
increase. We find that black and Hispanic teens initially employed and/or in school are more likely to become
idle following a minimum wage increase, while similarly-situated non-black, non-Hispanic teens are less likely
to become idle. For example, black and Hispanic teens initially enrolled and employed are 33.7 percentage
points more likely to become idle following a $1 minimum wage increase. In addition, our results suggest that
while black and Hispanic teens move out of employment and enrollment into idleness, non-black, non-Hispanic
teens are more likely to become employed.
Employers will look for higher skilled workers making it harder for youth to get a job. SBH.
ALEC [America Legislative Exchange Council helps develop innovative solutions in
partnerships with layers and businessmen.] The Effects of Raising a Minimum
Wage March 2014 http://www.alec.org/wpcontent/uploads/Raising_Minimum_wage.pdf
Even if employers do not decrease hiring, they will respond to higher labor costs by replacing the lowest-skilled
individuals with more highly-skilled employees, which prices inexperienced workers out of the market.
Further, the higher pay attracts more affluent individuals to enter the low-wage labor market, such as teenagers
from well-off families or adults looking to provide a secondary income to their households. The increased labor
supply makes it even more difficult to secure minimum wage jobs for those who most need them. According
to testimony provided by James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation, after minimum wage levels increase,
businesses employ more teenagers living in affluent zip codes and fewer teenagers from lower-income zip
codes.
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Jan/Feb 2015
For every 10% increase in the minimum wage, minority employment goes down 3.9% and
youth employment 6.6%. SBH.
The effects on employment are even more pronounced for minority youth. A 10 percent increase in the
minimum wage decreases minority employment by 3.9 percent, with the majority of the burden falling on
minority youth whose employment levels will decrease by 6.6 percent.
!
If employers do not fire employees, they will increase prices. SBH.

However, negative employment effects are not the only consequence of raising the minimum wage.
Employers often cannot fully absorb the costs of an increased mandated wage rate by cutting
their workforce because they need that labor to successfully run their businesses. Employers are forced to turn
to other methods to protect their bottom line and stay in business.
The costs of a minimum wage hike are often passed on to consumers in what economist Daniel Aaronson calls
price pass-through. In a study of prices in the restaurant and fast food industryan industry that heavily
employs and serves low-wage earnersAaronson, French and MacDonald found an increase in the minimum
wage also increases the prices of food items.Using data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from 1995 to
1997, the economists examined 7,500 food items (usually a complete meal) from 1,000 different establishments
in 88 different geographic areas. They found the increase in menu prices affected limited service restaurants
the hardest. These are restaurants where most diners pay at the counter and take their food home with them.
These restaurants are also more likely to employ low-wage workers and thus more likely to have their business
costs rise as a result of a minimum wage increase. The study found that in these instances, almost 100 percent
of the increase in labor costs is passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
!
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For every 10 % increase in the minimum wage, there will be a 4% increase in food and a .4%
increase in prices overall. SBH.
These results are consistent with most of the economic literature on the subject. Sara Lemos of the Institute for
the Study of Labor (IZA) looked at more than 20 papers on the subject and found that most studies predict- ed a
10 percent increase in the minimum wage would result in a 4 percent increase in food prices and a 0.4 percent
increase in prices overall.
Unfortunately, the businesses hit hardest by an increase to the minimum wage are not only the types of places
where low-income people are employed, but also businesses frequented by low-income consumers. Food prices are of particular importance to people living near or below the poverty line as they tend to
spend a greater percentage of their family budget on food.
An increase in prices makes the living wage once again insufficient funds to live. SBH.
The low-wage employees who experience an increase to their wages due to a minimum wage increase will have
the benefit of higher wages largely offset by higher prices. Additionally, non-minimum wage earners will face
higher prices without the corresponding increase in wages. Thus, they will likely cut back spending to
compensate. These cutbacks in spending may also result in substitutions toward cheaper, lower quality goods.
Page 103 of 141
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Neg: Universal basic income
Universal Basic Income Counterplan

Universal basic income ends poverty. SBH.
Matt Buenig and Elizabeth Stoker [Matt Bruenig writes on economics and politics.
Elizabeth Stoker is a Marshall Scholar at Cambridge University.] "How to Cut the
Poverty Rate in Half http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/how-tocut-the-poverty-rate-in-half-its-easy/280971/
The clear one is that no American would live below the poverty line. The U.S. has been waging the War on
Poverty for a generation now and still nearly 50 million Americans are below the line. This would end that war
with a decisive victory.
There are knock on effects as well. Americans would have greater leverage to demand higher wages and better
working conditions from their employer thanks to the increased income security. Families could allow one
parent to take time off to raise their kids. Eliminating the numerous different government welfare programs
would also lead to efficiency gains as adults would simply receive their check in the mail and not have to waste
time filling out paperwork at numerous different offices.
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Jan/Feb 2015
How UBI would be funded in US. SBH.

Matt Buenig and Elizabeth Stoker [Matt Bruenig writes on economics and politics.
Elizabeth Stoker is a Marshall Scholar at Cambridge University.] "How to Cut the
Poverty Rate in Half http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/how-tocut-the-poverty-rate-in-half-its-easy/280971/
In 2012, there were 179 million Americans between the ages of 21 and 65 (when Social Security would kick
in). The poverty line was $11,945. Thus, giving each working-age American a basic income equal to the
poverty line would cost $2.14 trillion. For some comparison, U.S. GDP was almost $16 trillion in 2012 and the
defense budget was $700 billion.
But a minimum income would also allow us to eliminate every government benefit as well. Get rid of SNAP,
TANF, housing vouchers, the Earned Income tax credit and many others. Get rid of them all. A 2012
Congressional Research Service report found that the federal government spends approximately $750 billion
each year on benefits for low-income Americans and that rises to a clean trillion when you factor in state
programs. Eliminate all of those and the net figure comes out to $1.2 trillion needed to pay for a universal basic
income, still a hefty sum.
That doesnt mean there arent ways to pay for it. The CBO found that a carbon tax would bring in nearly $100
billion a year for instance. Revenue would also increase automatically since everyone would have a basic
income on which to pay taxes. The government could also offer a basic income of $6,000 a year instead of up to
the poverty line. Funding a basic income for all working-age adults would not be easy and would require a
substantial increase in the size of government, but it's not impossible either.
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3 benefits to UBI. SBH.

Ed Dolan [Edwin G. Dolan is an economist and educator with a Ph.D. from Yale
University.] 1/3/14 The Economic Case for a Universal Basic Income (Part 1 of a
serieshttp://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/03/the-
economic-case-for-a-universal-basic-income/
A UBI would score well by three of the four criteria by which we evaluate transfer programs: It would be
effective in raising household incomes at least to the poverty level (as long as the benefit is set at that level or
higher). It would provide substantial work incentives. Because there is no reduction of benefits as earned
income rises, it would avoid the problems of cliffs and high effective marginal tax rates for low-income
households and second earners. (For readers familiar with the economic terms, a UBI would have an income
effect on labor supply but no substitution effect, unlike current income support programs, which typically
have both.) It would be administratively efficient. It would require no verification of any personal characteristic
or behavior other than the existence of the beneficiary. The program could be integrated with the existing
federal tax system. For example, households in the class for whom the poverty line is $20,000 would receive the
full $20,000 in cash only if they had no earned income. Those with earned income from $1 to $100,000 would
receive a payment equal to $20,000 minus taxes due, that is, minus 20 percent of their earned income. Those
earning more than $100,000 would get a credit of $20,000 toward taxes due.
UBI removes poverty and is a bargaining power for workers. SBH.

Mike Konczal May 11, 2013 [Mike Konczal is a fellow at the Roosevelt
Institute, where he focuses on financial regulation, inequality and
unemployment.] Thinking Utopian: How about a universal basic
income?http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/11/thinkingutopian-how-about-a-universal-basic-income/
First, what are some advantages of providing a universal basic income? To those on the left, a UBI would create
greater equality by ending poverty and providing a minimum living standard. It would also increase bargaining
power for workers, who could demand better working conditions with a safety cushion. As Erik Olin Wright
argues in Envisioning Real Utopias, such bargaining power will generate an incentive structure for employers
to seek technical and organizational innovations that eliminate unpleasant work, which would have not just a
labor-saving bias, but a labor-humanizing bias.
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Jan/Feb 2015
Its universality avoids a state that controls people. SBH.

Mike Konczal May 11, 2013 [Mike Konczal is a fellow at the Roosevelt
Institute, where he focuses on financial regulation, inequality and
unemployment.] Thinking Utopian: How about a universal basic
income?http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/11/thinkingutopian-how-about-a-universal-basic-income/
The fact that it is universal is crucial. This eliminates income traps that can cause severe work disincentives. A
UBI answers the Foucauldian critique about the welfare state being a way for the state to stigmatize and control
marginalized populations. There are no state officials determining whether or not a single mom deserves help
or drug tests and other invasive, humiliating requirements. Others see UBI as a way of recognizing the value of
decommodified caregiving and other cooperative, non-labor activities, by making sure there is space in the
economy to both reward and carry them out.
Page 107 of 141
Affirmative Counters
Page 108 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff Counters: Jobs
AT: Creates Jobs/Job Loss

Removing the minimum wage actually costs many jobs. LZ.
Dennis Loo [Professor of Sociology at California Polytechnic State University Pomona].
Libertarianism and Poverty. The Ethical Spectacle. April 2003.
http://www.spectacle.org/0403/loo.html
One common argument from libertarians is that the repeal of the minimum wage and labor regulations would
lead to the creation of more jobs to fight poverty. So what happened in Chile as regulations and wage laws
were repealed or loosened? Unemployment, which averaged around 6 percent in the 1960s and dropped
to around 5 percent in 1973 before Pinochet took over, averaged 20 percent from 1974 to 1987, peaked at
35 percent in 1982, and even when official unemployment numbers dropped, it was because working one
day a week was enough to be considered not unemployed. It also spawned other problems for the now
unemployed or underemployed, such as alcoholism and depression. What are a few of the results that we
can expect in the United States? Aside from the previously mentioned study by Linder and Nygaard which
suggests that workers will once again be urinating in their pants as bathroom breaks are repealed, the repeal of
pesticide exposure laws will likely increase the rate of poisoning in farm workers. Additionally, any business
failure will lead to the possibility of mass layoffs coupled with the absence of significant governmental
help to those laid off.
Economists Card and Krueger concluded that there was no loss to employment from a modest
increase in wages. LZ.
>.
The tenor of this debate began to change in the mid-1990's following some work done by two Princeton
economists, David Card (now at the University of California, Berkeley) and Alan B. Krueger. In 1992, New
Jersey increased the state minimum wage to $5.05 an hour (applicable to both the public and the private
sectors), which gave the two young professors an opportunity to study the comparative effects of that raise on
fast-food restaurants and low-wage employment in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage
remained at the federal level of $4.25 an hour. Card and Krueger agreed that the hypothesis that a rise in
wages would destroy jobs was "one of the clearest and most widely appreciated in the field of economics."
Both told me they believed, at the start, that their work would reinforce that hypothesis. But in 1995, and again
in 2000, the two academics effectively shredded the conventional wisdom. Their data demonstrated that a
modest increase in wages did not appear to cause any significant harm to employment; in some cases, a
rise in the minimum wage even resulted in a slight increase in employment.
Page 109 of 141
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Aff Counters: Jobs
Studies cant change peoples minds because the debate is too politically charged. LZ.
>.
Card and Krueger's conclusions have not necessarily made philosophical converts of Congress or the current
administration. Attempts to raise the federal minimum wage - led by Senators Edward M. Kennedy on the left
and Rick Santorum on the right - have made little headway over the past few years. And the White House went
so far as to temporarily suspend the obligation of businesses with U.S. government construction contracts to pay
so-called prevailing wages (that is, whatever is paid to a majority of workers in an industry in a particular area)
during the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. David Card, who seems nothing short of disgusted by the
ideological nature of the debates over the wage issue, says he feels that opinions on the minimum wage are so
politically entrenched that even the most scientific studies can't change anyone's mind. "People think we're
biased, partisan," he says. And he's probably right. While Card has never advocated for or against raising the
minimum wage, many who oppose wage laws have made exactly those assertions about his research.
Nonetheless, in Krueger's view, he and Card changed the debate. "I'm willing to declare a partial victory,"
Krueger told me. Some recent surveys of top academics show that a significant majority now agrees that a
modest raise in the minimum wage does little to harm employment, he points out.
Convention economic analysis doesnt work when analyzing the minimum wage. LZ.
However, conventional economic analysis might not apply in certain circumstances. For example, when a firm
is hiring more workers and needs to boost pay for existing workers doing the same workto match what it
needs to pay to recruit the new workershiring a new worker costs the company not only that new workers
wages but also the additional wages paid to retain other workers. Under those circumstances, which arise more
often when finding a new job is time-consuming and costly for workers, increasing the minimum wage means
that businesses have to pay the existing workers more, whether or not a new employee was hired; as a result, it
lowers the additional cost of hiring a new employee, leading to increased employment. There is a wide range of
views among economists about the merits of the conventional analysis and of this alternative.
Page 110 of 141
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Aff Counters: Jobs
Increasing wages does not reduce employment. BG

Of course, opponents of a higher minimum wage argue that it would reduce employment. Ironically, the same
conservative politicians and business lobbyists who characterize employment as being vulnerable to any
improvement in the minimum wage often brag about the strength of Saskatchewan's job market and complain
about "labour shortages." Better wages would help encourage more people to enter the workforce. Claims that
minimum wages reduce employment have no empirical support. Economics professors from the
universities of Massachusetts (Amherst), North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and California (Berkeley) recently
compared adjacent U.S. counties along the borders of states with different minimum wages. Their
conclusion, published in the November 2010 edition of The Review of Economics and Statistics, was that: "For
cross-state contiguous counties, we find strong earnings effects and no employment effects of minimum
wage increases." In other words, boosting the minimum wage succeeded in raising pay without reducing
employment, even when neighbouring jurisdictions maintained a lower minimum.
A decreasing demand for labor does not necessarily mean that employees are harmed. In fact
they actually get more free time. BG
But even if raising the minimum wage reduced employers' demand for labour, it would still benefit
employees. The vast majority of minimum-wage work is in areas such as fast food and retail, which have
variable shifts and hours. If these employers want less labour, they cut back hours rather than lay off
workers. In reality, a fastfood restaurant would likely require the same amount of labour since it could not
substitute robots or other capital equipment for workers. Our proposal is to phase in the 16 per cent increase in
the minimum wage. For argument's sake, imagine that the restaurant responds by cutting paid hours by 16 per
cent. Its employees would still earn the same total income as before and gain more free time, with the
wage increase offsetting the decrease in hours worked. Opponents of a higher minimum wage cannot get
away with simply suggesting that it might somehow slightly reduce demand for labour at the margin. They
would have to prove that paid hours would fall by a larger percentage than the increase in wages. And that is not
what the evidence indicates.
Page 111 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff Counters: Jobs
Early studies prove that living wage does not decrease employment. BG
A frequently expressed concern about living wage ordinances is that the increased cost might decrease
employment opportunities for low-skilled workers by causing employers to hire fewer workers or even
lay off employees. The employment impact of living wage ordinances is a primary focus of most recent living
wage studies. In attempting to answer the question of whether or not living wage ordinances have a significant
impact on employment, different researchers have used a variety of approaches, ranging from qualitative
interviews with service contractors and affected workers, to detailed before-and-after analysis of impacted
firms, to econometric analyses of readily available labor market data. Most of the available studies have
concluded that there have been either no or only small employment losses as a result of adopting living
wages. At the time when the earliest analyses were conducted, there was not enough data to
quantitatively assess the impact that living wage laws had on employment. Instead, researchers relied on
qualitative surveys to develop an impression of the potential impacts on employment. In their 1996 study,
researchers from Preamble interviewed 31 contractors affected by the wage increase. None of the firms,
including the janitorial services most heavily impacted by the increase, reported reducing staffing levels
as a result of the living wage requirement (Preamble 1996, 10). In 1999, Niedt interviewed 26 workers
employed in jobs affected by the Baltimore living wage ordinance. Based on questions about conditions at
their workplaces, Niedt concluded there was no evidence that employment levels or working time had
changed because of the living wage (Niedt 1999, 27).
Page 112 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff Counters: Jobs
Studies prove that living wage does not decrease unemployment. BG

Later studies have used quantitative data and more sophisticated techniques to answer the question
about employment impacts, and have reached similar conclusions as these early studies. In his postpassage study of the Boston living wage, Brenner found little evidence of job losses. There was no
significant difference in changes in employment (total employment or full-time equivalent (FTE) employment)
between contractors who were forced to raise wages because of the law and those that did not have to raise
wages (Brenner 2005, 73). For example, affected firms added 22.1 FTE positions, while unaffected firms added
22.4.14 Also, the number of contract employees covered by the Boston ordinance increased more at firms that
were forced to raise wages to comply than those that did not have to raise wages. Brenners study documents
that while approximately 1,000 workers received wage gains, there was no evidence of reduced employment or
hours.15 The Los Angeles living wage ordinance directly raised the wages of an estimated 7,700 workers,
according to the LAANE study16 (Fairris et al. 2005, 20). This extensive study, using original surveys of
firms and workers, found that job loss occurred for less than 1% of the covered workers, or 1.4% of
those receiving mandatory wage increases. On the firm side, less than one in five affected firms reported
making any staffing changes due to the living wage.17 The analysis by Reich et al. of the living wage policy
at the San Francisco Airport concluded that there was no evidence of employment losses due to the
policy. Despite a recession-induced decline in airport activity by early 2001, SFO employment in jobs covered
by the QSP rose by more than 15% between 1998 and 2001the period in which the QSP was implemented
(Reich 2005, 129). As Reich et al. report, this increase is surprising given that over the same period, airport
activity declined by 9% and overall employment in the San Francisco [metropolitan area] increased by only
1%.18 Although her research focuses primarily on employee turnover, Candace Howes findings from her
study of the living wage ordinance for home-care workers in San Francisco also does not support claims
of job loss. Over the four years of her study (late 1997-early 2002), the number of home-care workers
increased by 54% (Howes 2002, 2).
Page 113 of 141
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Aff Counters: Jobs
The only study that proves that job loss occurs is the Neumark and Adams study. However,
this study is completely flawed. BG
Only read this if they bring up Neumark and Adams. And do not read the whole thing. Chose which
points you think are the best in refuting Neumark and Adams. However, this evidence is pretty damning
of anyone who is relying on Neumark and Adams.
A series of studies by Neumark and Adams are an exception to the general findings of studies of
employment effects. They report significant decreases in employment as a result of cities adopting living wage
policies. In at least five separate papers, Neumark and Adams examine the effects of living wage laws by
comparing the experience of the lowest-paid workers in cities with living wage laws to those in cities without
such laws.19 In each of their studies, Neumark and Adams report that the workers in living wage cities have
experienced positive wage effects, but negative effects on employment relative to workers in non-living wage
cities. While Neumarks and Adams research has received wide attention, it has also been criticized by a
number of economists, especially work by Brenner, Wicks-Lim, and Pollin. While it is not possible to fully
address all of the criticisms in this review, below is a brief summary. To begin with, the data source used in
the Neumark and Adams studies is the Current Population Survey (CPS), a national survey used by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics to measure unemployment, wages, and other labor market outcomes. While
an excellent data source for many purposes, it is inappropriate for the task of analyzing the impact of
living wage laws. Given that in some communities the living wage law only impacts a few hundred
workers, it is unlikely that any affected workers are surveyed by the CPS at all in some communities.
Even in Los Angeles, with one of the broadest of living wage ordinances, Brenner, Wicks-Lim, and Pollin
estimate that one year of CPS data would likely include about eight affected workers20 (Brenner, Wicks-Lim,
and Pollin 2002, 13). In addition, the CPS does not contain data on the workers employer, making it impossible
to positively identify those eight workers if they do appear in the survey. Using the CPS to analyze the
economic effects of living wage laws makes finding a needle in a haystack look like a relatively simple chore,
which is why most researchers have eschewed it for the more costly and time-intensive process of administering
new surveys targeted specifically to be able to calculate the impacts of living wages. These surveys reflect the
experiences of firms and workers actually impacted by living wage ordinances, while the CPS data at best allow
Neumark and Adams to analyze a broad swath of the more general, low-wage workforce. Neumark and Adams
report that their findings are driven by laws that extend the living wage requirement to firms who are recipients
of business assistance (such as tax breaks). They report that laws that only cover employees working on
municipal contracts (the majority of policies) do not have significant impacts on wages or employment. The
finding that laws covering business assistance drive the results casts doubt on the studies because most
observers believe the business assistance extensions to be weakly implemented or even redundant. Brenner et
al. have argued that a large share of the cities with business assistance provisions had not actually implemented
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Aff Counters: Jobs
this part of the law during the time studied by Neumark and Adams; while these provisions exists on paper,
firms have not actually been required to raise wages because of them.21 Economic development expert Timothy
Bartik considers the effects identified by Neumark and Adams unrealistic since, large economic development
subsidies typically only go to new and expanding manufacturing companies[which]are a small share of the
labor market and pay high enough wages that few workers would be affected by living wages (Bartik 2004,
290). Bartiks assessment is supported by Elmores survey, which found that many business subsidy programs
already emphasized attracting high-wage jobs, so living wage laws effectively formalized and reinforced
existing practices (Elmore 2003, 2). In order to rule out the possibility that their findings were spurious,
Neumark and Adams calculated the wage and employment effects for two groups of workers they call
covered and non-covered workers. Since living wage beneficiaries cannot be identified directly in the
CPS, they used a classification scheme that ends up including unreasonably large portions of the
workforceover 85% of the lowest-paid one-fourth of workers in cities with living wage ordinances are
classified as covered (Neumark 2002, 60). Referring to the Los Angeles example, Fairris estimates that
fewer than 10,000 workers benefited from the living wage ordinance, but Neumarks and Adams
classification scheme proceeds as if approximately 450,000 workers received a raise under the
ordinance!22 The size of the poverty reduction effects reported by Neumark and Adams are also simply
too large given that living wage ordinances affect relatively few workers (Bartik 2004, 290). Similarly, the
disemployment effect reported by Neumark and Adams is unrealistic, equivalent to 91% of the total
number of workers most other researchers have estimated to be affected (Fairris and Reich 2005, 10).
Brenner et al. found that Neumarks and Adams key findings are extremely sensitive to the inclusion of
workers from Los Angeles earning less that the state minimum wage.23 Since most firms affected by the Los
Angeles ordinance are also covered by the states minimum wage and can generally be expected to be in
compliance with it, it is doubtful that workers not covered by the minimum wage would be potentially
covered by the living wage law.24 Because of these factors, it is unlikely that the differences in wages,
employment, and poverty between the two groups of cities (living wage and non-living wage) are due to
living wage ordinances. As Richard Freeman notes, any of a host of uncontrolled factors that change the
economy in an area exclusive of a living wage ordinance could explain the empirical patterns [observed by
Neumark and Adams] (Freeman 2005, 24). All told, Neumarks and Adams results are simply not
believable. Their econometric analysis shows that, on average, metropolitan areas with business
assistance provisions tended to have more negative employment outcomes and more positive wage
outcomes than other cities during the time studies. For all of the reasons discussed above, however, there
is little reason to believe that these results are capturing the effects of living wage ordinances. The effects
measured by Neumark and Adams are too large to be reasonable, the data source they use is inadequate
to capture what they are hoping to measure, and there are too many other possible factors that could be
driving their findings.
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Aff Counters: Jobs
The CBO report overstates the loss in employment. LZ.

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.
<http://equitablegrowth.org/research/understanding-the-minimum-wage-andincome-inequality-and-economic-growth/>.
In several ways, the CBO report overstates the costs of raising the minimum wage with regards to employment.
First of all, the report overstates the willingness of employers to substitute workers for capital. Minimum wage
jobs are concentrated in industries and occupations where substitution is unlikely. You cant replace a janitor
with a Roomba.
The authors also dont account for possible productivity gains from raising the minimum wage. Increased
productivity increases wages, but higher wages can boost productivity. Workers who are better paid may
become more productive according to the efficiency wage theory. About 90 percent of interviewed fast food
managers, for example, said a minimum wage increase would spur them to help improve the productivity of
workers. Worker productivity could also be boosted by reduced turnover due to a minimum wage increase. As
workers stay on the job longer they become more familiar with work tasks and therefore more productive.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, the CBO report also doesnt appear to account for the fact that the most
price sensitive consumers are also the workers receiving the largest wage gains from an increase in the
minimum wage. The low-wage workers who often have the hardest time dealing with price increases would be
the ones receiving wage increases. The net effect of a minimum wage increase would be a gain for these
workers.
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Unemployment did not increase in UK after NMW introduction. LSS.

Aggregate employment continued to rise around the time the NMW was established (April 1999) and presently
there are a record 25 million employees in employment. It is not possible to know what aggregate employment
would have been in the absence of the NMW but the strong growth in the employment:population ratio suggests
no employment effects. Employment shares have been analysed by the LPC (2001a,b). There is no minimum
wage for 16- and 17-year olds and as the minimum wage for 1821-year olds has more bite than the adult rate,
some substitution between these two groups might be expected. This did not happen. Between spring 1999 and
spring 2000 the employment share of 1617-year olds fell, while the employment share of those aged 1821
years rose (LPC, 2001b, Figure 2.5). Likewise there is no evidence that the introduction of the NMW ratcheted
down trends movements in the share of total employment accounted for by low paying sectors like cleaning,
security, hospitality, retail and textiles (LPC, 2001a, Figure 3.17).
Page 117 of 141
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Aff Counters: Private charities
AT: Private Charities

A government should guarantee the minimum wage, not private charities. LZ.
Dennis Loo [Professor of Sociology at California Polytechnic State University Pomona].
Libertarianism and Poverty. The Ethical Spectacle. April 2003.
http://www.spectacle.org/0403/loo.html
A common libertarian objection to charges that the repeal of welfare would hurt the poor is that the rich will
donate more money to private charities, which in turn would be more efficient than the government. The
combination of private charity, churches, communities, and family would be able to "bridge the gap" for those
who do not earn enough to support themselves. Clearly, this did not happen in Chile as governmental
spending on the poor dropped even as the rich got richer. Malnourishment increased(72), and the number of
families which could not afford a basic "basket" of necessary goods doubled in the twenty years leading up to
1989. By that point, fewer than half the families in Santiago could afford that basic basket(73).
The governmental welfare state also provides services that private markets would not do or would do in a
less efficient manner(74). As Nicholas Barr points out in his definitive text _The Economics of the Welfare
State_, private markets are efficient only if the "standard assumptions" of perfect information, complete
markets, perfect competition, and no market failures hold(75). One major example of this type of service is
health care(76). The efficiency problems of health care arise largely due to the lack of perfect information(77);
for example, the vast majority of people are unable to make independent judgements as to the quality of the
health care they would be paying for in a fully unregulated market, as well as being unable to judge the "value"
of the health care they would be purchasing with a certain amount of money. In particular, a service or
commodity in which the repercussions of mistaken choice are high tends to be less market efficient(78). Barr
also notes that "Once a public good is produced, non-excludability makes it impossible to prevent people from
using it, hence it is not possible to levy charges(this is the free-rider problem); in such cases the market may fail
entirely."(79) Furthermore, Barr shows that if the free-rider problem is nontrivial, private donations will lead to
fewer benefits to the poor than the welfare state(80). During the Pinochet regime, Chile sharply reduced state
contributions to health services, greatly increased privatization in health care, and removed regulations. This led
to less preventive care which in turn led to a greater increase in health emergencies, deterioration in the quality
of hospital equipment, hospital overcrowding(81), and the danger of medical quackery(82).
David Friedman further claims that though the poor may be harmed by the repeal of some government
programs, they will benefit far more from the repeal of others that would go along with the repeal of the
beneficial ones(83). His chief example is Social Security. However, the savings from not having to pay taxes
for Social Security is far outweighed by the financial hit the poor will take from the repeal of TANF and
the plummeting of wages in the libertarian job market. (84) Additionally, a privatized pension market's
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Aff Counters: Private charities
efficiency is dependent on the standard assumptions of perfect information, perfect competition, and lack
of market failure; at the same time, there must be no unanticipated inflation(85). When Chile largely
privatized its Social Security, Chileans often operated from misinformation or outright lack of information(86).
Inflation further degraded the benefits, and by 1987, Chilean labor economist Jaime Ruiz-Tagle estimated that
only 22 percent of Chilean workers made a salary that might allow them to retire with more than minimum
benefits(87).
Page 119 of 141
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Aff Counters: Costs government
AT: Living Wage Costs Gov $

A living wage does not increase government contracts. BG
In 1999, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) published the third study of the Baltimore experience. Analyzing
contracts that could be directly compared before and after the implementation of the ordinance, the EPI
research associates from Johns Hopkins University found that the nominal contract costs for the city rose
just 1.2%lower than inflation during the same periodand concluded that the budgetary impact of
the living wage [in Baltimore] has, to date, been insignificant (Niedt et al. 1999, 6-9). Despite the overall
real decline in contract costs during the period under study, there was a range of results for different contract
types. Some contracts experienced moderate price decreases, while others grew considerably. The overall price
for the heavily affected janitorial contracts, for example, rose 16.6% in nominal terms, with specific contracts
seeing price increases ranging from less than 1% to over 50%. The overall budgetary impact of these contracts,
however, was negligible as cost increases in other contract areas were more modest. The EPI studys overall
conclusion was that the widely voiced fea r that [the living wage ordinance] implementation would place
intolerable strains on the citys budget have not yet materialized.
Page 120 of 141
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A living wage does not increase government contracts. BG

The research conducted since these early studies on Baltimore has tended to confirm the initial findings
of negligible overall increases in contract costs. In 2003, Andrew Elmore surveyed administrators in 20
cities and counties that had adopted living wage ordinances that had been in force at least one year by
late 2001. Each of these municipalities also had the administrative capacity to produce cost impact estimates,
formal internal evaluations, or other empirical assessments of the effects of their laws. Elmores main finding
was that in most municipalities contract costs increased by less than 0.1% of the overall local budget in
the years after a living wage law was adopted (Elmore 2003, 2). Municipalities widely overestimated the
costs of the living wage ordinances: the City of Berkeley, California, for example, projected the living wage
would result in $479,425 in higher contract costs, but the actual increase turned out to be less than half that
amount. Elmore reports that, despite the negligible overall costs of living wage ordinances, in each city there
were a few contracts that did experience significant price increases. Predictably, these few contracts were labor
intensive operations that employed a large number of workers concentrated at low wages, notably janitorial and
security guard services.4
A living wage does not hurt the governments budget. BG

Living wage laws have small to moderate effects on municipal budgets. A detailed survey of 20 cities found
that the actual budgetary effect of living wage laws had been consistently overestimated by city administrators;
actual costs tended to be less than one-tenth of 1% of the overall budget. Two separate studies of the Baltimore
living wage found that city contract costs increased less than the rate of inflation. A study of the Los Angeles
ordinance found no measurable effect on the citys fiscal health. A study of living wage ordinances in three
New England cities found that contract costs only rose in one city.Multiple studies have shown that the bidding
for municipal contracts remained competitive or even improved as a result of living wage ordinances.
Page 121 of 141
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A living wage does not increase the costs for the government. BG
One frequently raised concern is that the cost of the living wage might be passed onto the municipality
through higher prices for contracts. If contract prices do increase, the municipal government will be
faced with cutting services, raising taxes to pay for the higher costs, finding ways to become more
productive, or some combination of the three. A number of studies have examined changes in municipal
contract costs resulting from living wage laws. In general, the evidence from enacted ordinances, as well
as the more carefully prepared prospective studies, shows that the overall cost of contracts does not rise
significantly. In 1996, one year after the implementation of the first modern living wage ordinance in
Baltimore, the Preamble Center for Public Policy published a study reviewing the fiscal costs of the ordinance.
The Preamble study used data on city contracts and interviews with contractors and found that, in the first year
under Baltimores living wage law, the real cost of city contracts actually decreased. Nominal contract costs
rose 0.2%, but after adjusting for inflation costs declined by 2.4%. Expenses associated with implementing the
law and monitoring contractors compliance were also shown to be minimal, with the City allocating about 17
cents per person annually for this purpose (Weisbrot and Sforza-Roderick 1996, 10).
Page 122 of 141
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Aff Counters: Govt interference
AT: Government Interference

Scaling punishment for now following NMW ensures businesses are not ostracized by
government. LSS.
Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
Skidmore (1999) points out with approval that a range of escalating sanctions exists in the legislation, as
advocated by responsive regulation theory (Ayres & Braithwaite, 1992; Fairman & Yapp, 2005). The theory is
essentially a micro-level one dealing with the immediate relations of regulators and managers, derived from
non-minimum wage situations. Inspectors are expected, under this approach, to use a range of regulatory tools,
such as self-assessment and codes of governance, as well as forms of self-regulation, rather than strict rules and
actual inspections of organisations. It argues that regulators should relate to employers via an enforcement
pyramid. These measures begin with the regulator simply advising the employer at the base of the pyramid and
culminate in criminal sanctions against serious offenders at the apex. The regulator thus does not alienate the
employer by assuming wrong-doing at the beginning of the process, but takes action in response to his or her
actions.
In UK, government plays secondary role in enforcing NMW. LSS.

Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
The British Government views employers self-regulation as the main means for securing minimum wage
compliance (Low Pay Commission, 2003, p. 154). The Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI) has responsibility for publicising NMW rates under the NMWA 1998. Government assumes that
most employers are as interested in compliance as unions, and the Low Pay Commission (LPC), the body
designed to monitor compliance, was constituted on a social partnership basis (Thornley & Coffey, 1999).
Official commitment to publicity has been limited however: the Government rejected the LPCs
recommendation, made in its first report, that the NMW should be publicised on pay slips (Low Pay
Commission, 1998).
Government policy therefore rests principally on the assumption that most employers will comply, with
enforcement playing a strictly secondary role (Simpson, 1999). Initial Government statements were sensitive to
opposition claims that the NMWA would create a vast new inspectorate, and emphatically rejected them
(Barbara Roche, quoted by Skidmore, 1999, p. 447). Therefore, the politics of enforcement emphasise restraint
in the use of existing powers.
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Poor employer pay records at fault for not enforcing NMW, not government. LSS.
Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
Poor employers pay records are a fundamental problem. Clearly, the effort that many COs put into helping
small employers to improve their records represents a considerable, previously unidentified, public subsidy to
them. It also detracts from COs main work. Many employers are unaware that the burden of proof in NMW
cases rests with them. Though penalties for inadequate records exist and could be increased, COs appear
reluctant to use existing powers. For example, at the extreme, criminal sanctions exist in Section 31 of the
NMWA for employers obstructing Compliance Officers or destroying or falsifying records but these have never
been used. HMRC is reluctant to use scarce resources in taking action against employers for the lesser offence
of failing to keep adequate records for four reasons. First, it delays payments to workers. Second, it is felt that it
will have limited demonstration effects on other employers. Third, it carries the risk of failure. Fourth, notices
end worker anonymity if the employer appeals. Yet inadequate records encourage Compliance Officers to place
workers in an exposed position to compensate for the information deficit. For HMRC to initiate a number of
well-publicised cases (possibly where falsification was involved) might improve employer awareness of the
potential costs. However, this would be a labour-intensive diversion from other enforcement activity and
therefore raises the wider question of governmental willingness to increase enforcement resources.
Publicity key reason NMW can be ineffective; not government interference. LSS.
Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
Self regulation is predicated on widespread awareness of NMWA requirements, but the NMWs complexity
creates confusion among employers, especially about how the three different rates are applied. This complexity
is also a problem in workers being unable to identify whether they qualify or not. Our research therefore
confirms the earlier identification of complexity as an issue (Skidmore, 1999, p. 433). Achieving adequate
publicity for a complex system is difficult, and simplification, particularly by reducing the number of rates and
exemptions would assist. If the existing rates and exemptions were to be retained, clarity as to when they apply
is needed. Three relatively simple measures could be taken to publicise employers duties. First, NMW
information could be sent to employers with their annual tax pack. Second, the P60 form could be changed to
include hours and earnings, allowing calculation of the hourly rate, automatically alerting HMRC to possible
cases. Third, regular advertisements in the trade press, commonly read by employers in low paid industries like
hairdressing and hospitality, would also be helpful.
Page 124 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
NMW awareness programs can increase effectiveness, thus proving role of government vital.
LSS.
Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
Most importantly, the government needs to adopt a more comprehensive approach to informing workers of their
rights. Despite the HMRC Helpline, low awareness exists about how to process a claim and workers right to
anonymity. There is an obvious need for information to reach all workers. Since this is difficult to achieve,
putting NMW information on pay slips and requiring slips to show compliance as recommended in the LPCs
first report but rejected by the Government (Low Pay Commission, 1998, p. 151) would make the relevant
information more widely available. Moreover, it would even help those workers unable to read it, as it would
disseminate the information sufficiently widely for it to be seen by their workmates and probably for it to be
discussed in the workplace. Publicity and advice also needs to address the misconception among workers that
the NMW only applies to full-time or to certain proper jobs.
Awareness of rights key to helping workers; done through government. LSS.

Studies 28.2 (2007): 145-61.
Awareness among workers of their right to the minimum wage is key to compliance. Heyes and Gray (2004),
researching the impact of the minimum wage among small businesses, suggest that lack of knowledge among
employers (and workers) may be an important factor in non-compliance. While overall awareness of the
minimum wage appears to be high, detailed knowledge of entitlements is often lacking (Meager et al., 2002).
According to recent research for the DTI (Casebourne et al., 2006), awareness of rights to the NMW among
workers was indeed found to be high. When this sample of workers was analysed in more detail, however, it
became clear that it was the more vulnerable workers (defined as younger and older workers, part-time workers,
those without an HR department in their workplace or company, those who not have managerial/supervisory
duties and lower earners) who were least aware of their rights.
Page 125 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Aff Counters: EITC counterplan
AT: EITC Counterplan

The minimum wage and EITC are designed to work together. LZ.
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.
<http://equitablegrowth.org/research/understanding-the-minimum-wage-andincome-inequality-and-economic-growth/>.
The anti-poverty effects of the minimum wage are significant, but to pull workers and their families up and out
of poverty, the minimum wage must work in tandem with income support policies. One of the most
important policy interactions is with the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC is a refundable tax credit for
low-income families that is larger for those with more dependent children. The EITC is an effective antipoverty policy that lifts millions of Americans out of poverty. In 2012, the EITC lifted 6.5 million people out of
poverty, according to the Center Budget and Policy Priorities.
For example, the minimum wage and the EITC are designed to work together. As economists David Lee, of
Princeton University and Emmanuel Saez of University of California, Berkeley, argue the optimal minimum
wage should be paired with a wage subsidy, such as the EITC. This wage subsidy encourages workers to
enter the labor force and the minimum wage helps ensures they receive an adequate wage to escape
poverty. Looking at the data, we can see how the minimum wage and the EITC work together to pull families
out of poverty. At the current minimum-wage level, a single earner (full-time, full-year) with two dependents
would receive $5,372 from the EITC for a total after-federal income of $20,452 (although workers may need to
pay state income taxes and will owe payroll taxes). With a minimum wage of $9.45 in 2013 dollars, a single
earner would see a $4,920 boost from the EITC for a total after-federal income tax of $24,576.
A major concern with the EITC, however, is that it is a subsidy to employers who pay very low wages.
According to UC-Berkeley economist Jesse Rothsteins estimates, employers capture 27 percent of the value of
the EITC. The EITC induces more workers into the labor market and makes it easier for them more to take
lower wages, since they can get the EITC subsidy. Part of this result is because EITC-eligible workers who can
afford a lower wage compete against non-eligible workers. The result is that employers get labor at a cheaper
rate than they would otherwise.
One very important reason to focus on raising the minimum wage is that a higher minimum wage reduces this
capture by reducing the reduction in wages caused by the increase in the supply of labor. Making more workers
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Aff Counters: EITC counterplan
eligible for the EITC would also help benefit workers. The end result is both greater employment and more of
the EITC subsidy going to the intended recipients, low-wage workers and their families.
Low-wage workers are eligible for a variety of benefits aimed at boosting incomes or helping them afford
basics, such as housing, health care, or childcare. This is important since many basics, especially health care,
childcare, and housing, are too expensive at market rates for low-income workers and their families. Childcare
alone can eat up a large portion of a minimum wage workers income. It is imperative that these programs work
in tandem and that Congressand state policymakersconsider the interaction effects of changing any of these
policies. In many cases, the states set the rules for program eligibility, with some guidelines from the federal
government, so engaging them in this conversation is a must.
In the mid-1990s when Congress implemented welfare reform, Congress did a very good job putting all these
pieces together by looking at the benefits and income supports for low-wage workers and their families as a
package. Within a short span of time, Congress implemented welfare reform, while also raising the minimum
wage, expanding the EITC, expanding access to childrens health through the State Childrens Health Insurance
Program, and expanding childcare subsidies. Only by putting a full basket of policies together will low-wage
workers be able to rise out of poverty and into the middle class. The minimum wage is a core piece of this
puzzle, but it is not the only piece. (See Figure 2.)
Page 127 of 141
Negative Counters
Page 128 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg Counters: Women and minorities
AT: Helps Women/Minorities

Unless the minimum wage is increased by $5, it wont help women. LZ.
Weiner, Joann [teaches economics at George Washington University]. "Raising the
Minimum Wage Would Help and Hurt Women." Washington Post. The
Washington Post, 2 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/09/02/raising-theminimum-wage-would-help-and-hurt-women/>.
Making matters worse, many of these working women have kids but no husband at home. The $15,000 she
earns at minimum wage places her well below the poverty level of $22,891 for a single-parent family with three
kids. Poverty, unfortunately, describes nearly one out of three families headed by a mother with no husband
present, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Its clear that if she earned more per hour, she could begin to climb out of poverty. The census bureau estimates
that female-headed families with no husband present need to earn an additional $10,317 to rise out of poverty.
Assuming that she works full time (2,000 hours a year), this mother would need to make roughly $5 more per
hour to reach this goal.
Obviously this doesnt respond well to all affirmative positions, but if the affirmative only advocates for a
slight increase in the minimum wage, then they wont be able to solve poverty.
Page 129 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg Counters: Women and minorities
Increasing the minimum wage hurts African Americans. LZ.

Cahn, David, and Jack Cahn. "Popular Does Not Mean Practical: The Case Against the
Federal Minimum Wage." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 Apr.
2014. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-cahn/populardoes-not-mean-pra_b_5128311.html>.
Young people, especially African Americans, are hit the hardest. Economists William Even and David
Macpherson find that each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage decreases employment by 2.5 percent, 1.2
percent, and 6.5 percent for white, Hispanic and black males ages 16-24, respectively. Meanwhile, the
minimum wage encourages students to dropout of high school in pursuit of higher paying jobs (that don't exist),
according to the Economic Policy Institute. Overall, a Michigan State University study showed that a higher
minimum wage would increase the number of idle teens -- those who neither work nor attend school -- by as
much as 20 percent. These young adults who are unable to find meaningful employment turn to crime.
According to a study published in the American Sociological Review, a 1-percentage point decrease in youth
unemployment causes 1 to a 5 percent decline in property crime such as burglary, larceny, and auto theft.
Raising the minimum wage is an enticing proposition because it is a tool intended to help the working poor.
Logic and hard facts, however, demonstrate that raising the minimum wage would be counterproductive
because it forces companies to lay-off their workers, making it even harder for hard working Americans to
make ends meet. Solutions such as the earned income tax credit, by contrast, could help lift millions of
Americans out of poverty without threatening their jobs. Pragmatism, not populism, will help create a more
equal America.
Page 130 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg Counters: Rawls
AT: Rawls
Rawls wouldve supported a guaranteed social minimum rather than a minimum wage. LZ.
Bungay, Felix. "John Rawls: For School Choice, Against the Minimum Wage." Bleeding
Heart Libertarians. N.p., 12 June 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
<http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2013/06/john-rawls-for-school-choice-againstthe-minimum-wage/>.
What about the minimum wage then? Well in an interview with PBS, Samuel Freeman said Rawls was
opposed to the minimum wage (meanwhile the Economist tells us that Obamas plan to raise the minimum
wage makes him a Rawlsian thats poor scholarship): He [Rawls] thought we ought to get rid of a minimum
wage and let the labor market just go as low as it would and let employers just pay two, three dollars an hour if
they could and let the government come in and supplement that.
And what form did Rawls believe this supplement ought to take? Well, he again drew on Milton Friedman and
argued for a negative income tax. When discussing the institutions associated with the second principle
(chapter 5 of ToJ), Rawls says that the government guarantees a social minimum either by family
allowances and special payments for sickness and unemployment, or more systematically by such devices
as a graded income supplement (a so-called negative income tax).
Page 131 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg Counters: Rawls
Rawls implied that tax-and-transfer policies are better than a minimum wage. LZ.
Rogers, Brishen [Assistant Professor of Law, Temple University James E. Beasley School
of Law], Justice at Work: Minimum Wage Laws and Social Equality (April 26,
2014). Texas Law Review, Forthcoming; Temple University Legal Studies Research
Paper No. 2014-08. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2318559
It is of course unsurprising that legal economists would focus upon questions of efficiency rather than justice.
What may be more surprising is that the minimum wage has also troubled legal scholars within another major
branch of AngloAmerican normative legal theory, the egalitarian liberalism of heirs to John Rawls.6 (While
philosophical liberalism is of course far broader than Rawls et al., for ease of exposition this Article will use the
term liberals to denote Rawls and his heirs and liberalism to denote their thought.7 ) Liberals insist that
justice is a matter of fairness, especially for societys worst off.8 But some prominent liberalsincluding
Rawls himselfhave implied that tax-and-transfer policies are preferable to minimum wage laws as
means of achieving distributive justice. Indeed, liberals priority concern for societys worst off may
render the minimum wage especially problematic since those with few skills or marginal labor market
connections face the greatest likelihood of job loss after a mandated wage increase. A leading liberal tax
scholar has, therefore, proposed a system of unconditional cash transfers to poor citizens in part on the
grounds that doing so would help clear the way for repealing minimum wage laws.
Page 132 of 141
Cases
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Jan/Feb 2015
Aff Case
Affirmative Case
I affirm todays resolution, Resolved: Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.
I offer the following definition of a living wage:
Investopedia. Living Wage. 2014. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/living_wage.asp. Investopedia is a
website owned by Forbes Digital.
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.
Because governments are charged with the well being of their people, my core value in todays debate is
societal welfare. To uphold this value, my criterion in todays debate is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the
principle of doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. A living wage ensures this by
providing both economic and social benefits to a huge portion of society.
Contention One: A living wage would decrease crime.

The prevalence of crime in a society is an obvious detriment to societal welfare. Crime often violates
individuals security, their autonomy, and their economic standing. Of course, the victims of crime suffer harm
to their welfare the most, but societal welfare is itself decreased by the very existence of criminals. Those who
act outside the law are leading lives that would be better spend in the folds of formal society. Thus, reducing
crime increases societal welfare.
Importantly, poverty has been shown to be an important cause of crime.
http://www.umich.edu/~psycours/561/kramer.htm. Professor of sociology and director of the Criminal Justice
Program at Western Michigan University.
The links between extreme deprivation, delinquency, and violence, then, are strong, consistent, and
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Aff Case
compelling. There is little question that growing up in extreme poverty exerts powerful pressures toward
crime. The fact that those pressures are overcome by some individuals is testimony to human strength
and resiliency, but does not diminish the importance of the link between social exclusion and violence.
Indeed, experts argue that a specific social support structure is important in reducing crime.
http://www.umich.edu/~psycours/561/kramer.htm. Professor of sociology and director of the Criminal Justice
Program at Western Michigan University.
One of the most significant ways in which economic deprivation and social exclusion can lead to youth
violence is by inhibiting or breaking down the social supports that affect young people. Cullen (1994)
reviews research that supports his proposition that "America has higher rates of serious crime than other
industrial nations because it is a less supportive society" (531). He notes studies that have demonstrated
the corrosive effect of America's culture of excessive individualism and pursuit of material gain without
regard to means (Messner and Rosenfeld 1997). This competitive pursuit of the American Dream not
only encourages individuals to obtain material goods "by any means necessary"; it also inhibits the
development of a "good society" in which concern for community and mutuality of support dominate.
Cullen (1994) also points out that "economic inequality can generate crime not only by exposing people
to relative deprivation but also by eviscerating and inhibiting the development of social support
networks" (534). Moving down from the national level, Cullen (1994) argues that "the less social
support there is in a community, the higher the crime rate will be" (534). He reviews evidence that
"governmental assistance to the poor tends to lessen violent crime across ecological units.
Thus, a government policy that required employers to pay a living wage would have several important
consequences. First, it would send a social message to communities that a decent standard of living is an
important value of the community. This would enhance the social fabric that prevents crime. Second, it would
indeed enable those who are at risk of committing crime to lead productive lives under the law; there would be
less incentive to commit crime. In all, societal welfare would increase as a result of less crime.
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Aff Case
Contention Two: A living wage would benefit women.
Unfortunately, we still live in an age where discrimination against certain groups happens. Women are
discriminated against in the workplace and this has profound social implications.
David Madland and Nick Bunker June 20, 2012 [David Madland is Director of the American Worker Project
at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Nick Bunker is a Research Assistant with the project.]
Women Are the Biggest Losers from Failure to Raise Minimum Wage
https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/labor/news/2012/06/20/11682/women-are-the-biggest-losersfrom-failure-to-raise-minimum-wage-2/
Women are disproportionately harmed by a low minimum wage because womenand especially
women of colorare much more likely hold low-wage jobs than men. The typical woman earns 77
cents for every dollar the typical man does, and the fact that women are more likely to be minimumwage earners than men contributes to that disparity. This gap is especially distressing now that twothirds of mothers are either the breadwinners or co-breadwinners for their families.
In 2011 more than 62 percent of minimum-wage workers were women compared to just 38 percent of
male minimum-wage workers. Slightly more than 2.5 million women earn the minimum wage or less,
while approximately 1.5 million men do. This imbalance is even more drastic once you consider that
women were just 46.9 percent of all employed workers in 2011.
So, when we are talking about the benefits of a living wage for women, we are discussing two major issues. The
first is the direct benefit of millions of women who would see their wages increase. This alone should be
enough to affirm because we are seeing a direct increase in the welfare of millions of people, many of whom
support a family. Additionally, there are crucial impacts that would reverberate throughout society. A living
wage paid to women would be another important step in gender equality. By implementing a policy that attacks
this problem, we have the chance to change the perception of womens power in the work place, which could
have broader benefits to social welfare.
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Aff Case
Contention Three: A living wage would benefit the overall economy of a society.
When assessing societal welfare, we should take a broad approach. Economic analyses of the impact of a living
wage show that it would greatly benefit society on balance.
David Cooper. 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.
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 term
Cooper also goes on to say that,
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
Beyond simple measures of spending and GDP growth, providing a living wage may increase productivity of
workers.
Boushey, Heather, "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.
<http://equitablegrowth.org/research/understanding-the-minimum-wage-and-income-inequality-and-economicgrowth/>.
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,
Page 137 of 141
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Aff Case
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.
Undoubtedly, then, a living wage would have economic benefits for both those receiving the living wage, as
well as other workers and businesses within the economy. The government has an obligation to ensure the
welfare of its people, and requiring that employers pay a living wage would uphold such an obligation.
Page 138 of 141
Jan/Feb 2015
Neg Case
Negative Case
I negate todays resolution, Resolved: Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.
My core value in todays debate is liberty. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines liberty as, the state or
condition of people who are able to act and speak freely. My criterion is the free market, in which people
and businesses can make autonomous decisions about how to use labor and capital.
Contention One: Forcing employers to pay a living wage violates their autonomy.
I am not attempting to argue that a government has no obligation to its citizens regarding their welfare. In fact,
the argument could be made that the government should ensure a standard of living for their citizens that is
equal to a living wage. However, the notion that they should do so by forcing employers to foot the bill is
incorrect.
Minimum wage laws are unethical because they, like other employment legislation such as affirmative
action, introduce government force into employment relationships which should be based on voluntary
trade between employers and employees. Businesses should be free to hire whom they choose and
negotiate pay based on the prospective employees value to the business. The employees are free to
reject the offers and to seek work with other companies that value more highly what they have to offer.
Indeed, as The Economist points out:
Houston, WW. "Bad Welfare." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 19 July 2013. Web. 08 Aug. 2014.
<http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/07/living-wage-laws>.
If the value of a worker's labour is less to her employer than the cost of a reasonable standard of living,
why should the employer be on the hook for the difference? Subsidising the worker, to bring her up to a
certain baseline minimum, counts as a subsidy to the employer only if we think that was the duty of
business all alongto pay workers not only a wage commensurate with the market value of their labour,
but also sufficient to finance a life of a certain dignity and security. Mr Brennan goes on (using the
example of Bob, a McBurger employee): 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
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Neg Case
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.
So what is the solution? Worstall, Tom, Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute, writes:
"The Moral Case Against Raising The Minimum Wage." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 6 Mar. 2014. Web. 03 Dec.
2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/03/06/the-moral-case-against-raising-the-minimumwage/>.
And thus we come to my position, one that many will find rather odd. Ive no problem at all with,
indeed welcome, the idea that theres a certain minimum that all in our society should share. But this
argument that a rise in the minimum wage would be a good idea because it would reduce the costs of inwork benefits is, to me, entirely the wrong way around. Precisely because we insist upon these minimum
standards it should be us that pay for them through our taxes. Rather than raise the minimum wage and
dump the costs of those standards on other peoples wallets rather than our own.
Effectively, requiring employers to provide a minimum wage would constrain the liberty of those employers to
utilize their capital as they see fit. This would have negative social, moral, and economic consequences. Instead,
if the citizenry, and by extension the government, believe that a certain living standard is crucial, then they
should ensure such a standard without impinging on the liberty of employers.
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Neg Case
Contention Two: Workers should be free to choose what wage is acceptable to gain employment.
Again, the key issue in this debate is not whether citizens deserve a certain standard of living, it is whether
employers are morally obligated (or legally) to provide such a standard. However, putting this requirement on
business may in fact hurt citizens because of economic dynamics. James Dorn explains:
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.
<http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/minimum-wage-cruelest-those-who-cant-find-job>.
The minimum wage violates the principle of freedom because workers are not permitted to work at less
than the politically determined wage rate, even if they are willing to do so to get or retain a joband
employers are prohibited from hiring them. The minimum wage does nothing to increase the
productivity of low-skilled workers. Indeed, it prevents them from acquiring the skills and experience
they need to move up the income ladder. Discouraged workers may then drop out of the workforce and
end up on welfare or drugs.
Employers want to hire people in accordance with the value those people can add to the business. Sometimes,
people do not have the skills or experience to add enough value to meet the would-be requirements of a living
wage. Instead, it would be better for them to enter at a lower wage and build their value over time. In the
meantime, the government could subsidize that persons life to ensure an adequate standard of living.
Being able to freely trade value for value is also in the interest of employees and prospective employees.
Being able to negotiate wages without government-mandated minimums will make unskilled and
inexperienced workers more attractive to employers. This would give job opportunities to young
people in particular and to those with fewer skills in general. Young people are often both
inexperienced and unskilled and cannot compete with older, more experienced and skilled workers when
companies are forced to pay both the same minimum, despite the lower productivity of the less
experienced and less skilled young workers. The youth unemployment rates (for 15 to 24-year olds) in
the developed worldtypically at least twice as high as the rates for the adult populationattest to that
reality. (Although many in the youth age group go to school or work part-time, the twice-as-high
unemployment rates cannot be attributed to that alone but reflect the barrier to youth employment
created by the minimum wage laws.)
I will now spend the remainder of my time attacking my opponents case.
Page 141 of 141

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Advanced Level January/February Brief

Resolved: Just governments ought to require

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

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

Living wage + its implications defined. LSS.

Living wage defined. LZ.

Living wage defined. LZ.

Living wage is distinct from the minimum wage. LZ.

Living Wage (as a movement) defined. LSS.

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

Living wage is distinct from minimum wage. LSS.

Laying the Foundation

Laying the Foundation

Laying the Foundation

Living wage movement based on family wage campaigns. LSS.

A closer examination of the $10.10 option. LZ.

Laying the Foundation

A closer examination of the $9.00 option. LZ.

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

Laying the Foundation

Key features of a minimum wage. LZ.

Laying the Foundation

Privatization is what prompted increased living wage laws. LZ.

Laying the Foundation

Three reasons for rise of living wage movement. LSS.

History of national minimum wage in the UK. LSS

Laying the Foundation

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

Laying the Foundation

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

Laying the Foundation

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

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

Laying the Foundation

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

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

The effects of a $9.00 minimum wage. LZ.

The effects of a $10.10 option. LZ.

Raising wages helps local businesses and the local economy. BG

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

NMW conducive to employment retention. LSS.

NMW has potential to alleviate poverty. LSS.

Aff: Stopping crime

Aff: Stopping crime

Aff: Stopping crime

Aff: Stopping crime

Aff: Stopping crime

Poverty leads to youth violence by excluding social supports. BG

Aff: Stopping crime

Poverty disrupts family life, thus causing more crime. BG

Aff: Stopping crime

Aff: Stopping crime

Aff: Stopping crime

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

Aff: Helps women

Aff: Helps women

Increasing the minimum wage would help women workers. SBH.

Aff: Helps women

Those in poverty are mostly women and children. SBH.

Aff: Helps women

Aff: Helps women

Raising the minimum wage would benefit women. LZ.

NMW benefits women. LSS.