Some people may believe that minimum wage increases help the economy, but a new study by a West Point professor begs to differ.
The study done by Dr. Joseph Sabia showed that increases in minimum wage cause employment decreases for less skilled workers.
Micheal Saltsman is a research fellow for the Employment Policies Institute. He says minimum wage increases cause less qualified individuals to be replaced by those more skilled or even by technology.
"If costs go up in grocery stores or restaurants, they don't want to pass these price increases onto their own customers. So instead they have to find a way to do more with less. A grocery store by my house recently replaced six cash registers with six different automatic checkout lanes" said Saltsman.
Saltsman says 2010 Census results show that a lot of people who earn minimum wage are not living in poverty. He says minimum wage increases are a bad way to help the working poor.
"The average family income of a minimum wage earner is 47,000 dollars a year. That's because a lot of minimum wage earners are either teens living with their parents or married. There are only about one in five minimum wage earners nationally that are single parents with children. And there are a lot of government policies that are designed to give direct income to them like the earned income tax credit" said Saltsman.
The study showed that from 1997-2007 each ten percent increase in a state's minimum wage, decreased employment for low skilled workers by 3.6 percent.
To take a look at the study go to epionline.org.