¶ … Legal Prices: Collect information minimum wage. State purpose legal price, assess impact market labor, evaluate extent achieves purpose. List Resources: Bureau Economic Analysis - http://bea.
Evaluating legal prices: The minimum wage
The modern day employee is viewed as the most valuable organizational asset and sits at the core of the company's ability to attain its overall objectives. In such a setting then, the employers compete for the best skilled and qualified employees, and the staff members benefit from higher wages and better incentives.
Nevertheless, this was not always the status of the employees. The first employers were the factory workers, who migrated from the villages to the cities in search of better lives, but were mostly confronted with exploitation on the part of the factory owners, long hours of work, insufficient pay, unsafe and unsanitary working and living conditions.
The workers eventually rioted and were met with resistance and violence on the part of the factory owners. Gradually however, they formed unions and the policy makers came to side with the labor force. Several legislations were passed throughout the years in order to protect the employees and prevent abuses from reoccurring. Some examples in this sense include the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 or the Civil Rights Act of 1993.
As part of the overall effort to protect employees from abuses, the states also implemented the minimum wage, which is assessed as a measure prohibiting the employers from paying any employee a wage below the minimum set by the federal institution.
In other words, the minimum wage represents "the minimum amount of compensation an employee must receive for performing labor. Minimum wages are typically established by contract or legislation by the government. As such, it is illegal to pay an employee less than the minimum wage" (Investopedia, 2012).
The scope of minimum wage is that of protecting the staff members against a possible exploitation by their employers. The level of the minimum...
Some notable economic traits considered in setting the minimum wage include the inflation rate in the country, the purchase power of the individuals, the size of the labor force, the national output and so on. At a particular level, the minimum wage is set in direct relationship with the prices within the national market and it strives to reflect the ability of any employee to afford the basic necessities in life.
Despite the social dimension of the minimum wage, economists have often argued that the measure generates negative impacts upon the economies, which are forced to comply with regulations that do not derive from market realities.
"Minimum wages have drawn strong criticism from many economists, since it establishes a price floor on wages. Price floors can lead to a dead weight loss in the economy, which means that inefficiencies exist. In this case, the minimum wage might force companies to hire fewer employees, thus increasing unemployment" (Investopedia, 2012).
Within the United States of America, the minimum wage per hour is set at $7.25 for any category of employee who is not exempt from the application of the law; for the category of employees younger than 20, the U.S. has set a minimum hourly wage of $4.25, which can only be paid throughout a three-month duration starting the initial employment within a firm (United States Department of Labor, 2012).
Across the country however, the states have implemented various minimum wages, as revealed in the table below:
State
Basic minimum rate
1.
Alabama
No state minimum wage
2.
Alaska
$7.75
3.
Arizona
$7.65
4.
California
5.
Colorado
$7.64
6.
Connecticut
$8.25
7.
Delaware
$7.25
8.
District of…
