Comment on Raising Minimum Wage

         The author of the blog Jennifer’s Texas Political blog writes about the need for an increase in minimum wage. While she makes some very good points, like the struggles of living with only minimum wage, and how raising it will cause cost push inflation, and a very unique idea about a floating minimum wage, I will have to disagree with her. The first thing I think people forget to realize is that a job is a choice. If you don’t want to work and get paid the amount of money they offer you (let’s say minimum wage), then you have every right not to do that job that only pays minimum wage. A wage is what a business will give an employee for the job, depending how much they think that job is worth (depending on skill, education, knowledge, how hard it is, etc.). If someone thinks that a certain job deserves more money, then don’t take the job. And if everyone thinks the same and there is nobody willing to do the job at minimum wage, then they will increase the wage until people want to have that job. So setting off this equilibrium by forcing the businesses to pay the employees more than what the job is worth (and what the employees agree the job is worth) will only cause problems including lower business profits and more business closures, cost push inflation, and a shortage of goods because there will be a lot of people that are able to buy things that they couldn’t buy previously and there is not enough stuff to go around in the short run.  So just raising the base minimum wage will make the economy stable and not help people in the long run.

             She addressed the problem with a very smart and unique model that makes the minimum wage vary with inflation so that the wage stays the same relative to the worth of the dollar. This is very smart, and is something that would happen naturally if the economy is let to run its course, but this can be done artificially also. But where problems come is if this fluctuating rate differs from the pace of how actual wages fluctuate. If Bill got a job at 10 dollars an hour, his friends might be at minimum wage which (hypothetically) are going to range from 7-9 dollars in a year with this new minimum wage model. Bill will get a raise at the end of his year (which is typical) because he has been adding worth to his job, but he will only get 10 the whole year until the raise, while minimum wage is all over the place. Bill’s friends may get a two dollar raise for the same job during the year while Bill’s wage lowers in comparison for doing the same job. So under this fluctuating wage other people might suffer in comparison.

             Other problems that can arise is unemployment because more people want these high paying jobs, or companies turning to robots because they would be cheaper. So I think a better option would be instead of spending money on wages which are just going to be offset by something else, more money should be invested in making people better equipped for the workforce. This would happen by having higher taxes on businesses, so that the money that would have went towards higher wages is just going toward better education and cheaper tuition. This way people are educated and can do harder jobs that are worth more and get a higher salary.

Carter Schools Being Put Under the Spotlight

Carter Schools are privately owned schools with public funding. There has been recent spotlights put on carter schools since Texas passed an overhaul of charter school in 2013, it’s first since 1995. This much needed and long awaited reform from legislatures included a provision which would allow fast shuttering of school who did not meet expectations. TheTexas Tribune states that these expectations are financial and academic accountability ratings which, if not met in three proceeding school years, will close the school and gives limited appeal ability if not met after one year. Six schools were marked by the Texas Education Agency for closure, but three schools appealed to the state court for various reasons including: not agreeing with the ‘one size fits all’ way of evaluating schools, its unjust restrictions on appeals, its punishment of money saving financial decisions like getting outside funding or keeping money in an endowment instead of a bank account to get more interest.

                I agree with the much need provision for charter schools. If carter school receives taxpayer money, it is the right of the taxpayer to know that the money is being used in a way that is equally or more effective than the public school model. I also agree with the swift closure provision, because this allows poor performing and tax dollar wasting schools to close easily and make room for more effective and efficient schools to take their place.

                Although this reform is doing a lot of good and quickly closing bad charter schools, the three schools that are appealing (Honors, Azleway, and American YouthWorks) raise some important flaws in the evaluation and closure of schools. The biggest and most immoral problem is the limited appeals for schools that do not pass the ratings. Even if it is a poor- performing school, everybody deserves the right to appeal. Not allowing appeals is unjust and quite possibly unconstitutional. Another problem brought up was punishment from business decisions like putting money in endowments and receiving outside funding. While I think it is unjust that they are being punished for making those decisions, I do not think that specific things like “endowments and outside funding are allowed” should be put into the provision. If the document starts to get specific like that, then it will eventually turn into the US tax code which outlines every single financial do’s and don’t’s which allows companies to avoid taxes (or in this case let a charter company avoid being shutdown). I think that allowing appeals to be heard will allow school to explain how making decisions like using endowments and outside funding is beneficial in their specific case and should not be punished.

                While I think that this ‘one size fits all’ rating should broaden its horizons and look at various measures of affective education, I think that it is an overall good thing to have a centralized evaluation system to see if these charter schools are truly using taxpayer money wisely.

Comment on Raising Tuition

Aaron Taylor Bonnette posted an article, Tuition Costs, on Friday July 25, 2014, on his blog called You may allgo to Hell, and I will go to Texas. He states that tuition is too high for kids from low income families and they need more aid to pay for the increasing cost of college. After reading I agree with him that tuition is very expensive. It is also extremely hard to pay for college for students that come from low income families. But instead of looking at education from an angle of paying it for it in full now and only getting 45,000 in your first job (if you find a job), I think education should, instead, be treated as an investment.  

If you look at the return on investment of education, then it is clear to see that paying even the full price (without aid or scholarships) is definitely worth the investment. New York Times says that getting a bachelor’s degree rather than just a high school degree will on average give you a profit of $500,000 over your working life. The gap has been getting bigger over the past few decades and will even get bigger for people with a degree compared to those without. So the $38,000 of debt will easily be paid off plus you will have $460,000 extra to spend. Even if you go to a private school, there is a huge return on investment. But I would not economically encourage people to go to private schools in general because studies show that there is no significant difference between the return on investment between state and private schools. So I say that people should get a degree at all costs. Yes, it is initially expensive. Yes, you might be unemployed or underemployed for a while. Yes, you will need to take out loans with interest. But in the end, all of that is worthy it.

But I do think that more financial aid is great. It would be great to give more money to kids that need it, but where does that money come from? That money would come from budget cuts in other areas of the total government budget (or the education budget), or the money would come from increased taxes. It is extremely hard to raise taxes because nobody wants an income tax or raised taxes in other areas. It is also hard to cut spending from anywhere in government because every sector has lobbyists keeping the money in their sector. And there has already been budget cuts in elementary and high schools, so there shouldn’t be even more cuts there. So I don’t think it is possible to give more money out in loans, even though it would be a great thing to do. Instead the student can somehow pay for it him/herself and get their money back later in life. It is completely possible to pay for a bachelor’s degree through current amounts of scholarships, financial aid, military funding, loans (some with higher interest than others), and many other payment options. So yes, everyone that does well enough in high school to get excepted into college deserves a college education, and it is possible to get for everyone even though it might seem like a financial burden at first.