May 19, 2013
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Description
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labor. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in many jurisdictions, differences of opinion exist about the benefits and drawbacks of a minimum wage.
The minimum wage is generally acknowledged to increase the standard of living of workers, reduces poverty, reduces inequality, boosts morale and forces businesses to be more efficient. Critics of the minimum wage, predominantly followers of neo-classical economic theory, contend that a minimum wage increases unemployment, particularly among workers with very low productivity due to inexperience or handicap, thereby harming less skilled workers and possibly excluding some groups from the labor market; additionally it may be less effective and more damaging to businesses than other methods of reducing poverty.
(via Freebase)
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