Dear Mr. Trump,

The minimum wage is one of the biggest issues in America. I believe the minimum wage is doing much damage to America, therefore should not be raised. Believe it or not, I don’t have any experience with minimum wage; I’m still a minor. But when I am able to work, I most likely will encounter problems finding a minimum wage job if the minimum wage keeps going up. That’s because companies will limit the amount of people they hire and that narrows it down to the best and most skilled workers that have experience. I have seen when I go to fast food places how most of the workers are not high school students. As a minor, I don’t have work experience, so many companies will automatically reject me because of that. If they’re going to be paying their workers more money, they want to use that on workers with experience so they can get the job done faster and better, benefitting the company so that they make more money. But that’s only one problem regarding the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage is the reason for many job losses in America because companies need to pay their workers more, so instead of doing this, the companies hire less people (like I mentioned before), move jobs to countries with a lower minimum wage, replace positions with machines, and increase their prices (inflation) if they want to be able to pay workers.

Raising the minimum wage is the cause of all of those issues. Many people think that by raising it, it would help those that are living off of minimum wage jobs. But in fact, they don’t realize all the harm they are doing by raising it. Sure, it seems like a good idea to help those who don’t make a lot of money, but when one looks at the effects of raising the minimum wage, it is putting people in even worse situations than they started.

As I stated previously, the effects of the minimum wage being raised are inflation, job outsourcing, and job losses. The effects of the minimum wage have been going on for a long time, not just recently. According to Fred Kolish from Miami Township, “over the past 30 years, labor has complained about business outsourcing jobs to foreign countries. The labor is cheaper. Lower labor costs is a big part of the equation” which means if the minimum wage is increased, some companies can’t afford to pay workers, so they move to countries where they can afford them if the company doesn’t want to increase their prices or lay off workers. This is bad for people in America because that means the people have to either move to the country where the company moved or leave that job and search for another. Job losses are also an effect; They are actually the main effect of raising the minimum wage. James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation recently did a study on what impact a $15 minimum wage would have on the U.S. He found that “7m jobs lost, or roughly 6% of current full time jobs in this country”, proving that the more the minimum wage is raised, the more job losses there will be. Replacing jobs with machines goes hand in hand with job losses. Panera announced that “as soon as 2016, the bread and pasta company will have replaced all of their cashiers with kiosks” states Breanna Deutsch from the Daily Caller. This proves that many jobs will be lost because less job positions are becoming available. And the last major effect raising the minimum wage has on America is inflation. Inflation is one of the alternatives a company has instead of firing people. Cheryl Hosmer from the Hearst Newspapers explains that “companies may not be able to afford to meet supply needs over time, and prices may rise when demand runs ahead of supply” which means that some companies don’t have enough money to pay their workers more and keep up with the rising minimum wage. So, a company’s solution to this is to increase their prices to make more money to pay the workers.

As one can tell, raising the minimum wage has a huge effect on a country, causing more problems than there was before. Raising it seems like a good idea because we want to help those that depend on it, but when one looks at the number of job losses, inflation, job outsourcing, and less positions due to machines, they can see that raising the minimum wage does way more harm than good for the people and country. And as for you, Donald Trump, I hope that you do something to fix this major issue in our country and make others see what they are really asking for when they protest for the minimum wage to be raised. I have hope that you can help lead our country in a better direction.

Sincerely,

Julie Soncodi