Bad idea to raise minimum wage

To the editor:

During President Barack Obama's 2014 State of the Union, he said that he intended to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour.

I agree with Mike Cambridge's Jan. 13 letter 'Raising minimum wage has consequences.”

Minimum wage should be left alone because if businesses that pay minimum wage are making money and they have to raise their wage, they may not make enough to keep the business out of debt, so to keep the business alive, they would have to raise their prices. That would make the wage increase useless because even though the workers are making more, they have to spend more to buy the same products, leaving us in the same spot, which is the workers not making enough to live on.

Another option that the businesses have would be to lay off workers and that would be even worse because not only would we be right where we started, but there would be even more people without jobs, having to pay for higher priced items.

I agree with Cambridge when he brings up the idea to, instead of raising the minimum wage, have a reward for sticking with the job by doing something like giving them a 10 percent raise for every year they stick with the company. Not only would this give the workers a way to earn more, but it would also help give an incentive to stick with the job and help reduce the turnover rate of low paying jobs.

Noah Steiner

Monticello