With the recent minimum wage increase many students around campus are happy to receive a paycheck that might be a little larger than last year’s, considering they work roughly the same amount of hours.

However, the increase is not a joyous occasion for everyone and does not necessarily help with the problem of “alleviating poverty as was initially intended.” (Fraser Institute).  

I propose that President Obama introduce new legislation that establishes a maximum wage rather than a minimum.  

The main argument for those who want to raise the minimum wage states the raise is needed to reduce poverty among the “middle working class.” But the raise brings accompanying negative effects.

Those who work under minimum wage are not necessarily the working class, but mostly high school and college students. As shown in the graph, the coverage of the minimum wage has decreased.  

In order to increase coverage, the government needs to make employment seem more attractive to businesses, by lowering the minimum wage.

In the current situation, employers either reduce their workforce or number of hours their employees work in an effort to stay alive whenever the wages increase. Allowing a lower wage allows those same employers to hire more people, decreasing unemployment statistics.   (Fraser Institute)

Raising the minimum wage raises inflation rates and plays a role in business failures.  

The decrease will also help with deflation. A recession is the ideal time to start since deflation will be necessary to give America more power in the worldwide economy by making the U.S. dollar stronger in relation to other currencies, allowing for more trade.  

Deflation will also combat the housing market and runaway food costs, since the same dollar today could be worth perhaps two dollars a few months after forced deflation.

A lower minimum wage will attract businesses to come back to America, since American labor will then be cheaper than outsourcing.

Instead of having businesses ship jobs overseas, jobs will become more favorable here since the labor costs would be competitive to current favorites such as China and Vietnam.

The U.S. can establish a new foothold in the 21st century by lowering the minimum wage. This will strengthen the dollar in relation to other currencies and at the store. It will make keeping jobs in the U.S. more favorable to companies.  

Lowering the minimum wage can only bring hope to the American population in a time of expected government intervention.