The Minimum Wage is Beneficial to the Poor

We live in a developed, first world nation, where 3rd world salaries simply will not cut it.

Most companies do not set a value to a task and then seek to give the full valuation to whoever gets chosen to complete it, they will seek the minimal possible compensation.

With unskilled workers being a massive chunk of the workforce, especially in areas of lower educational opportunities, this creates a large supply, reducing their ability to negotiate effectively.

History has shown how masses without power will accept horrendous conditions, or found alternatives by any (often violent) means. Neither of these are acceptable outcomes for the greatest nation in the world. Just because a group of people accept conditions does not mean those people had a choice, nor does it make it fair, just, or benefitial.

The second industrial revolution showed us how appauling worker conditions can get under the influence of the so called "invisible hand." Sweat shops, child labor, uncompensated workplace injuries, workplaces prone to injuries, a whole population destined to live short lives in squalor, unable to ever afford or invest in any form of advancement, much less an american dream.

I think we can all agree the result of the unregulated free market setup of that time was not benefitial to those workers.

Despite a lack of any investment in benefits or conditions, and despite the MASSIVE profits of the goliaths of that era, worker wages were unlivable and deplorable.

A lack of regulation helped only those who had money and power, a tiny minority. 

Introduction of regulations, including minimum wage lead to a boom for the american economy and especially unskilled workers, whose assembly line monkey work (nob A into slot B all day every day), attained them a suburban house, 2 cars, and a comfortable life. Objectively a far better outcome then the lawless economic hellscape of the second industrial revolution.

In addition to the poor, a minimum wage is helpful to small local businesses, who although cannot afford to indivudally raise wages at the moment, would greatly benefit from the increased patronage they would get from an enriched public. One would be foolish to cut back on employment with a rush of customers at the door. Increased sales can balance out decreased margins, but increased demand will shoot our gdp through the roof, maintaining our greatest in the world title (that is currently increasingly contested).

Demand without supply = opportunity 

Supply without demand = nothing

Our economy replies on consumers who can afford to demand. If the invisble hand demands otherwise, we will be 3rd world within a generation.

“This is tautological.”

“The rational actor whether a seller or patron seeks to optimize his gain; this means that the seller will try to redeem a much higher value while the patron attempts to purchase at a much lower value. Since any transaction between the two embodies the subjective values of each party, an employer, in this case, using your words "will seek the minimal possible compensation [a prospective employee is willing to accept.]" And this distinction is important. Without the agreement of both parties, there's no labor contract. If coercion is involved, then it's a slave contract.”
 

With unskilled workers being a massive chunk of the workforce, especially in areas of lower educational opportunities, this creates a large supply, reducing their ability to negotiate effectively.

 “Ambiguous reference. Large supply of what?”

History has shown how masses without power will accept horrendous conditions, or found alternatives by any (often violent) means. Neither of these are acceptable outcomes for the greatest nation in the world. Just because a group of people accept conditions does not mean those people had a choice, nor does it make it fair, just, or benefitial.

“This statement is riddled with contradiction and unsubstantiated assertions. If the masses were willing to accept what you allege are horrendous conditions, then it obviously would have been an "acceptable" outcome (contradiction.) And if these workers "accepted" but somehow did not have a "choice," are you alleging that these workers were placed under duress and coerced into taking/keeping their jobs?” 

Please submit to this debate's purview references of worker conditions before, during, and after the industrial revolution.
 

Introduction of regulations, including minimum wage lead to a boom for the american economy and especially unskilled workers, whose assembly line monkey work (nob A into slot B all day every day), attained them a suburban house, 2 cars, and a comfortable life. Objectively a far better outcome then the lawless economic hellscape of the second industrial revolution.

"Reference and citation please."

"Please elaborate on the relevance of their being a tiny minority; furthermore, provide reasons or empircal data to the effect of only those who had money and power being helped." 

Assuming that the "increased demand" borne from the income effect isn't offset by the decreased demand from price inflation (Law of Demand.) And if a minimum wage can enrich a public to an extent where GDP would shoot though the roof, then why hasn't it done so already, since the U.S. has a minimum wage?
 

Demand without supply = opportunity 
Supply without demand = nothing
Our economy replies on consumers who can afford to demand. If the invisble hand demands otherwise, we will be 3rd world within a generation.
 

“The minimum wage is a statutory edict which designates a price floor in the labor market--i.e. a minimum amount payable to employees by employers. It should be noted that the minimum wage does not guarantee employment. It requires only that employees legally hired be paid at the minimum. Many notable and pubic proponents of the minimum wage while prone to allege its necessity to the poor neglect to mention the effects this price floor has on the labor market. One and perhaps the most prominent effect the minimum wage has is pricing out partitions of low-skilled/unskilled labor. A minimum wage of $7.25 (the federal minimum) for example makes it illegal to hire someone at $7.24 or less. From an employer's standpoint, this takes on a slightly different meaning. The minimum wage makes it illegal for an employer to hire labor whose marginal productivity generates $7.24 or less.”
 

“My hypothetical, I trust you've acknowledged by now, is allegorical and microcosmic of the issues with the minimum wage. In essence, I've used economic reasoning in the context of a classroom setting to highlight:”
 

“The minimum-wage prices out low-skilled/unskilled labor.”

“The minimum wage may be offset by extending the increased costs of labor to prices.

Automated/Robotic alternatives increase the opportunity costs of employers hiring at the minimum.”

 

“And due to these effects and some yet to be elaborated, the minimum wage is not beneficial to the poor.”

I’m glad we agree. I am not debating welfare here. A living min wage assumes full time employment, not a one time round of erase the board. These are people reporting to work every day, trying to support a family… in the richest nation in the world. That considers itself the greatest.

Indeed, and as history has shown, those without power have been “willing to accept” some appalling things when given no choice. It is not called wage slave for no reason, and during those “free” market times, it wasn’t an exaggeration.

What is acceptable to those without choice, may not always be acceptable to a society. Made clear by me saying “neither of these are acceptable outcomes for the greatest nation in the world.” They were not under duress, but they also had no path to escape.

Workers couldn’t even organize as employers didn’t take them seriously and fired them all until the government stepped in to equalize the power that even collectively workers did not have.

Seriously? I need to reference the common knowledge of the second industrial revolution? I’ll get the reference about the goliaths of that era by simply stating names everyone should already know. Rockafellar, Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, Ford, Carnegie. These people amassed fortunes that made them legendary. How? Well lets look at the conditions under which they made their wealth!

https://www.historycrunch.com/working-conditions-in-the-industrial-revolution.html#/

"The final aspect of the working conditions that people faced in the Industrial Revolution was the lack of rights.  As previously stated, the political ideology of the time was classical liberalism.  This was a highly individualistic ideology that was based on little or no government involvement.  As a result, this meant that the government did little to protect workers from being exploited by the wealthy entrepreneurs of the time.  For example, child labor was a common feature of life in the Industrial Revolution.  Since there were no child labor laws at the start of the Industrial Revolution, factory and mine owners were free to hire children and employ them in incredibly dangerous situations.  Furthermore, in modern society, governments are often responsible for establishing minimum wage laws in order to protect workers from being underpaid.  However, during the Industrial Revolution, no such laws existed and as a result, industrial workers barely made enough to cover their cost of living.  Another example of how workers lacked rights was in regards to how they were treated if they were injured while at work.  As discussed in the previous paragraph, the workplaces of the Industrial Revolution were incredibly dangerous and workers often suffered from horrible injuries that made it impossible for them to keep working.  Because the government practised laissez-faire capitalism, this meant that they did not have initiatives in place to force factories to protect workers or to compensate them when they became injured and could no longer work. "

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum-wage-by-year/index.html

https://www.thebalance.com/us-gdp-by-year-3305543

 

The first link is a chart showing adjusted minimum wage by year.

The second link shows growth in gdp by year, I will be focusing on column #4 “GDP growth rate”

 

Min Wage was created in 1938, which is the start of the min wage chart.

In link 2, 1939 starts a series of years of incredible growth.

Min wage rises sharply after 1949

1950 and the next 4 years again grow exceptional compared to previous years.

1956 starts min wages rise to its adjusted peak at 1968, apparently amidst a recession (according to column #5), growth follows the rising wages yet again.

After that min wage starts a steady decline until finding a balance during the late 1980s, where they remain. The economy was a mix of a max of 5.5% growth (vs 7%/8% routinely, or even double digit growth when min wage was first started), and often in the negatives.

 

At the worst, min wage did not stifle growth, in fact it seems consistently correlated with accelerated growth.

Min wage, adjusted for inflation has been stagnant. Costs have been rising. Spending power of many has decreased. Thus our GDP growth becomes increasingly limited. How low the margins of a business are is irrelevant if there are no customers who can shop there. That’s an important concept for a mom and pop who rely on their local consumer base. Not so much for Walmart that can  lose shop and move easy, international if necessary.

At the worst, min wage did not stifle growth, in fact it seems consistently correlated with accelerated growth.

I have a biscuits for sale, but nobody wants biscuits. I have nothing but wasted inventory.

This also goes with I have biscuits for sale, but nobody can afford biscuits. Giving them away for free is nice, but not exactly a business plan. Thus we have nothing.

If there is no demand, there is nothing.

If people have demand, then there is opportunity for an entrepreneur to make money.

Yes. May I add that in a debate regarding the effect minimum wage has on the worker, much of my opponents arguments are concerned with the employer.

It certainly is a very gross oversimplification of all the issues. We are not talking about students doing a one time task. You can hire your local teenager to mow your lawn for a few bucks, nobody is coming after you. These aren’t full time workers reporting for duty year round for an actual business, trying to make an actual living. They’ll do it for free for a bit of extra credit. This analogy falls flat.

It clearly hasn’t as we have record unemployment despite rising wages in many of the major urban hubs, while going down nowhere.

It may, but not all prices will be effected. Real estate is not dependent on much labor, mostly inherent land value. It will not rise at all. It makes up almost 50% of the spending of most poor people. 30% is the suggest portion of your income for all people. Thats a sizeable exception to your rule.

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_092214.html

Medicine is another major cost for people, almost none of the price of medicine comes from low wage labor.

Automation is fractions penny’s on the dollar, its essentially free labor after a certain initial investment. Eliminating the minimum wage will not slow down the transition to tireless perfect machines by an iota. This is a red herring.

 “We don't. My statement was intended to make your redundancy clear.”

"Wage-slavery" is a spurious term which describes no discernible legal, political, social, or economic effect. It's a false equivalence. To be a slave is to be de jure and/or de facto property of another. So, if it's all the same to you, let's dispose of its use. Furthermore, you suggest that they "had no choice" but concede below that they weren't placed under duress. So then they did have a choice. You can argue that their circumstances made taking the job a necessity, but ultimately they made the choice. Your mention of "having no choice" in this context is another false equivalence.

What is acceptable to those without choice, may not always be acceptable to a society. Made clear by me saying “neither of these are acceptable outcomes for the greatest nation in the world.” They were not under duress, but they also had no path to escape.

“We are going to dispense with this as spurious. Until you can demonstrate how these people were being coerced, these false equivalences are not welcomed.”

That is not an "equalization of power." An employer's "power" is to hire or fire; a worker's "power" is to work or quit. Are the same provisos placed on a worker's power? No? Then there's no equalization.”

“There's a specific reason I asked you to provide references of worker conditions before, during, and after the Industrial Revolution. (You disregarded.)  That is to control for your allegation that worker conditions in the Industrial Revolution were particularly harsh. You neglected to mention Pauperism (poor recipients of relief laws) and subsistence farming (farming for survival.) They left their farms in droves because factory work provided them a means to acquire income--something they didn't have before. And many of them continued to work because they'd rather risk injury than return to subsistence. As for the paupers, they were de facto serfs under the auspices of the government. When the "poor law" was passed, paupers stopped receiving handouts and instead went to "workhouses" sanctioned and subsidized by the government. And as a condition of their relief, paupers had to work, work condition notwithstanding. The children who worked were separated into two categories: free children and parish (pauper) children. The free children were only allowed to work under conditions to which their parents consented. The pauper children had to work regardless of condition less they risk losing their relief from the government. There's actually a famous novel--perhaps you know it--that informs the effect of which I speak: the semi-autobiographical "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens. Dickens himself was a pauper (parish boy) and uses his own experiences in a workhouse (his parents were in debtors prison) to inspire the novel. And if you take note, Twist wasn't abused by his parents, or private shop keepers, he was abused by the keepers of the workhouse, most notably the beadle, Mr. Bumble. “

 

 

Furthermore, the State cannot by definition practice capitalism. It is a centralized public institution. Lastly, none of this has anything to do with the resolution of this debate. The resolution to this debate is centered on the question "Is the minimum-wage beneficial to the poor?" Even if your points about the industrial revolution weren't easily rebutted, and I were to concede that all of what you've said happened, you would still have not demonstrated how the minimum-wage was a remedy. The minimum-wage is a price floor. How would that have ended child labor (I am actually going to some effect this point?) How would the minimum wage have the work place safer? Or allowed workers to organize? No, what you argument does is create an uninformed dichotomy before and after the minimum wage.

 

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum-wage-by-year/index.html

https://www.thebalance.com/us-gdp-by-year-3305543

 

The first link is a chart showing adjusted minimum wage by year.

The second link shows growth in gdp by year, I will be focusing on column #4 “GDP growth rate”

 

Min Wage was created in 1938, which is the start of the min wage chart.

In link 2, 1939 starts a series of years of incredible growth.

Min wage rises sharply after 1949

1950 and the next 4 years again grow exceptional compared to previous years.

1956 starts min wages rise to its adjusted peak at 1968, apparently amidst a recession (according to column #5), growth follows the rising wages yet again.

After that min wage starts a steady decline until finding a balance during the late 1980s, where they remain. The economy was a mix of a max of 5.5% growth (vs 7%/8% routinely, or even double digit growth when min wage was first started), and often in the negatives.

 

At the worst, min wage did not stifle growth, in fact it seems consistently correlated with accelerated growth.

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc. You took two trends and put them together. One could do the same with trends in technology or capital flows. Your argument was that the minimum wage lead to an economic boom, not that it "seemed" to be consistent with economic growth. "Seem" is not an argument; "Seem" is your impression. Second, your argument isn't that minimum wage did not stifle growth (that would actually help my point.) Your position remember is that the minimum wage is beneficial, not neutral.

 

Min wage, adjusted for inflation has been stagnant. Costs have been rising. Spending power of many has decreased. Thus our GDP growth becomes increasingly limited.How low the margins of a business are is irrelevant if there are no customers who can shop there. That’s an important concept for a mom and pop who rely on their local consumer base. Not so much for Walmart that can  lose shop and move easy, international if necessary.

Despite your error, you're still presenting contradictory arguments. The part I've emboldened contradicts this:

At the worst, min wage did not stifle growth, in fact it seems consistently correlated with accelerated growth.

So can we take it from your own contradictions that you at least have yet to demonstrate how the minimum-wage itself has any benefit to productivity (GDP)?

I have a biscuits for sale, but nobody wants biscuits. I have nothing but wasted inventory.

This also goes with I have biscuits for sale, but nobody can afford biscuits. Giving them away for free is nice, but not exactly a business plan. Thus we have nothing.

If there is no demand, there is nothing.

If people have demand, then there is opportunity for an entrepreneur to make money.

 How is the minimum-wage shoring up demand (more than usual) if its pricing out low skilled labor? The minimum-wage only guarantees that those who have and keep their job get a bump in pay? What happens to demand if that bump in pay goes into savings? What does that do for the biscuit maker?

 

May I add that in a debate regarding the effect minimum wage has on the worker, much of my opponents arguments are concerned with the employer. 

 This is false. The employer is a constant as a source of employment. From my conclusions, tell me which concerns itself more with the employer? 

• The minimum-wage prices out low-skilled/unskilled labor.
  
• The minimum wage may be offset by extending the increased costs of labor to prices.
  
• Automated/Robotic alternatives increase the opportunity costs of employers hiring at the minimum.
  

It certainly is a very gross oversimplification of all the issues. We are not talking about students doing a one time task. You can hire your local teenager to mow your lawn for a few bucks, nobody is coming after you. These aren’t full time workers reporting for duty year round for an actual business, trying to make an actual living. They’ll do it for free for a bit of extra credit. This analogy falls flat.

The analogy doesn't fall flat. The purpose of any analogy is to convey a logic through different environments (contexts.) Stating that the environments aren't the same is redundant. It's the logic that matters. And the logic would apply and does apply with full-time workers. 

It clearly hasn’t as we have record unemployment despite rising wages in many of the major urban hubs, while going down nowhere.

 I don't know what you mean by this. What do you mean? 

It may, but not all prices will be effected. Real estate is not dependent on much labor, mostly inherent land value. It will not rise at all. It makes up almost 50% of the spending of most poor people. 30% is the suggest portion of your income for all people. Thats a sizeable exception to your rule.

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_092214.html 

Medicine is another major cost for people, almost none of the price of medicine comes from low wage labor.

That's redundant. I stated that it may. It depends on the price-elasticity of the good in question, as I illustrated in my earlier example.

Automation is fractions penny’s on the dollar, its essentially free labor after a certain initial investment. Eliminating the minimum wage will not slow down the transition to tireless perfect machines by an iota. This is a red herring.

All the more reason a "minimum-wage" makes no sense. If automation is inevitable, then why speed up the process by making low-skilled/unskilled labor that much more expensive?  

“My opponent stated earlier that a living minimum wage was required for workers to support a family. (The average family being started at age 25.) But most people working minimum wage jobs are teenagers.

 

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2018/home.htm”

 

I ask that the audience, prospective voters, as well as my opponent, give me some leeway to provide a final rebuttal/rejoinder before closing arguments given especially that this debate was essentially deprived a round.

 

 You stated:

 

"We live in a developed, first world nation, where 3rd world salaries simply will not cut it."  

 

"First-world" salaries are immediately embodied in the reference to a nation's status as "first world." Hence, for a nation to be considered "first world" it must reflect and be addressed by first world wages, which themselves reflect a first world's standard and cost of living (tautology.) Now, if the implication is that without a minimum wage, wages would reflect "third-world" rates, that would have to be substantiated. I would counter that by citing six "first-world" nations with no minimum wage:

Denmark

Iceland

Norway

Singapore (except for cleaners and security guards upon further research) Sweden Switzerland (where a majority voted against a national minimum wage.) List of First World Countries (The data also cites these nations as doing better than the U.S. on the Human Development Index.)

Six Countries With No Minimum Wage

 

No, the contradiction is still there; I'm rebuffing your sensationalism and demagoguery in your attempts to conflate wage-earning with slavery. You stated earlier that it was unacceptable, only to concede later that workers accepted employment in the absence of duress. Hence, the contradiction.

 

"All great in theory. I showed the results of this ideal in practice, it didn't end pretty."

You most certainly did not. You made mere statements.

"Perhaps equal is not the term" 

Then you are conceding to my point.

"balanced is.

Inconsequential statement of lexical semantics.

 

False. Negotiations can and still do occur. The "balance of power," as you put it, is contingent on the subjective values of each involved party. If the worker values the employment more than employer values his labor, then naturally the worker would have to give up more (lower his reservation wage) than his prospective employer to reach a mutual agreement; if the employer values labor more than the worker values employment than the employer would have to give up more (raise wages) in order to reach a mutual agreement. As it stands, there are no measures that give recompense for a worker quitting on whim. If anything, employers are afforded two weeks notice where they must assume the transaction costs themselves of searching for another employee. This "balance" of which you speak is not there.

First, let's dispense with this sophistic statement that I've somehow "shamed you." You are responsible for how you feel, not I. There are no arguments that were levied against you personally. Second, I requested that you cite worker conditions before, during, and after the Industrial Revolution, you did not. (You only provided information for during.) As I've stated before, this was to control for your allegation that worker conditions were particularly harsh. Not only that, it would've demonstrated the role of the minimum wage had if any since there were none even before the Industrial Revolutions. Furthermore, you are the one who brought up the Industrial Revolution; it's your responsibility to argue its relevance, not mine. You decided to focus on worker conditions and how the "invisible hand" was responsible for child labor, uncompensated work injuries, and such, when your argument should've focused on the lack of a minimum wage during that time, and the effect it had on poverty once imposed. But you didn't. That's your liability.

 

"Your solution to minimum wage is elimination of all such government interference. 

Quote me (from our discussion in this debate.)

"This is poor conduct."

Nice try. Forfeiting a round is poor conduct; engaging a tangent isn't. 

"The question was what would happen if the government doesn't pass any rules, and that is clearly a horrible solution."

No, the question is implicated by the topic: Is the minimum-wage beneficial to the poor? No one entertained the notion of the government not passing "any rules (laws/regulations.)

It's neither something I "made-up" nor is it something you said. It was stated in your reference: "Because the government practised laissez-faire capitalism, this meant that they did not have initiatives in place to force factories to protect workers or to compensate them when they became injured and could no longer work. "

 

You took two trends and said that they're related. You have provided no argument that demonstrates how these variables are related or how they vary with each other. You've demonstrated no "perfect correlation." If I took my grandfather's yearly raises in income before he retired, and put them next to the increases of minimum-wage it would demonstrate a positive trend as well. Except it was my grandfather's investment in himself (human capital) that explained his raises in income, as he earned far above the minimum. Furthermore, asking for the "impossible" is not a fallacy, which I haven't done. I requested that you substantiate your claims that the minimum wage led to a boom in the economy. By presenting the data as you have, I could just as well make the argument that increases in the minimum wage were a result of increases in GDP rather than the other way around especially given that the minimum-wage is a policy measure. If you cannot define these trends and argue to how they're specifically related especially as it suits the context of your argument, then don't make the argument.

 

 

If the biscuit maker is compelled to incur increased labor costs then this may result in one of three things:

 

The biscuit maker will have to either disemploy or undermploy his employees to cover the costs (biscuits are price-elastic.)

The biscuit maker will have to extend the increased costs of labor to the price of his biscuits, making them more expensive (assuming they are price-inelastic, which they aren't.)

The biscuit maker will incur the loss and eventually lose out to a competing bakery/biscuit maker

None of that which you state is supported by economic reasoning. You're assuming "more money, more demand." But that money comes at a cost, as prospect you have failed to address. And if you look at the above reference, it's demonstrable that the minimum-wage creates a substitution for low-skilled labor with high-skilled labor (pricing-out low skilled labor.) Who buys the biscuits if the consumers either have no job or work too few hours to afford them? Your claim of the minimum wage shoring up demand is not supported by sound economic reasoning (considering all variables, rather than just one.)

You haven't answered my question. None of those statements are about the effects on the employer per se, but the effects on the employee through the employer.

"2.      I negated all 3 of those in the previous round. " 

Tautology: negation is not the same as refutation.

"So different that the logic no longer applies and the analogy fails completely.

You have neither demonstrated nor substantiated this at all.

The current unemployment rate must be scrutinize for the following reasons:

 

(1) the labor force is defined as those who are actively looking for work within a FOUR WEEK span following these methods:

(2) The current labor force participation rate is 63%. That means more than a third of the population is not counted in either (legal) employment or unemployment.

 

(3) It doesn't take into account underemployment--reduction in hours, i.e. transition from full-time employment to part time employment.  (Hidden Unemployment.)

 

"May" is not an indicator of a "weak" argument; "May" considers the likely prospects, most of which I listed above:

 

 The minimum-wage prices out low-skilled/unskilled labor.

The minimum wage may be offset by extending the increased costs of labor to prices (contingent on price elasticity.)

Automated/Robotic alternatives increase the opportunity costs of employers hiring at the minimum.

Another, would be disemployment or the reduction in labor hours as informed above. 

 

"It is possible, but I do not recall bringing families into this at all. Please quote me" 

Here: 

 

"I’m glad we agree. I am not debating welfare here. A living min wage assumes full time employment, not a one time round of erase the board. These are people reporting to work every day, trying to support a family… in the richest nation in the world. That considers itself the greatest." [End of Round Three.] 

As did your numbers when you attempted to correlate the minimum wage with GDP, or would you argue those numbers reflected an algorithm that incorporated every localized minimum wage? Furthermore, 21 out the 50 states either by statute or by the absence thereof abide by the federal minimum.(www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx) 

 

Which is typically commensurate to their State's cost index and population sizes. For example, California has among the highest minimum wages, but in return has the highest cost of living, particularly in San Francisco. 

 

"Thus your link is missing the demographics for the vast majority of minimum wage workers, and its conclusion useless. Remember your position is not a juxtaposition of scale, so whether they are at a federal minimum or a local minimum wage, they are still minimum wage workers, and should all be counted."

No. Read the description carefully: The minimum wage itself, and not just juxtapositions of scale... My position does not exclude juxtapositions of scale, it just doesn't limit the argument to them. Not to mention in one sentence, you argue that my submission of federal minimum wage workers was useless, while in another argue that they should be counted. This submission of information actually weakens your position. One need only provide a reductio ad absurdum incorporating the extremes of the minimum wage, and you'd have to argue it is beneficial whether it be one cents or nation's GNI. I however have adequately argued with sound eco comic reasoning as well as sufficient information why the minimum wage, whether it be the federal or a local minimum wage isn't beneficial to the poor.

 

1. Through sound economic reasoning, I was a leader to convey with the use of anecdotal evidence that:

 

The minimum-wage prices out low-skilled/unskilled labor.

The minimum wage may be offset by extending the increased costs of labor to prices.

Automated/Robotic alternatives increase the opportunity costs of employers hiring at the minimum.

 

 

2. My opponent made an irrelevant reference to the Industrial Revolution, and in an attempt to reciprocate his poor conduct, have me blamed for engaging this tangent.

3. My opponent failed to demonstrate any substantial correlation between minimum wage and GDP. It can be argued that the minimum wage was a result of GDP and not the o thg her way around. 

4. I provided examples of First world countries that thrive without a minimum wage.