Minimum Wage

    The government should not raise the minimum wage for a few reasons. First of all, the effect on small businesses would be great if the minimum wage were raised. Small businesses employ about half the workforce (Ian Sheperdson, Forbes). Raising the minimum wage would adjust wages according to inflation for workers (Annie Lowrey, The New York Times), "but this takes no account of inflation [for banks], and it will take at least another year for real lending to return to its previous peak" (Ian Sheperdson, Forbes). Because banks are the major external source of finance for small businesses. If banks are not lending as much and employees require a higher wage, small businesses suffer.
    Second, in the State of the Union address President Obama said "A family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong” (Lowrey). The problem is, raising the minimum wage won't help that much there. "About 60% of the officially poor don’t work, so the only thing raising the minimum wage does for them is to make it harder for them to get a job....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 " (William Dunkelberg).
   Finally, the number of jobs will decrease, and more people will be layed off. "The Law of Demand always works: the higher the price of anything, the less that will be taken, and this includes labor" (William Dunkelberg). For these main reasons, the minimum wage should not be raised.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ianshepherdson/2013/09/10/small-businesses-are-the-missing-key-to-a-full-economic-recovery/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/us/politics/obama-pushes-for-increase-in-federal-minimum-wage.html?_r=0
www.forbes.com/sites/williamdunkelberg/2012/12/31/why-raising-the-minimum-wage-kills-jobs/