McDonald’s is a staple of American fast food. We’ve all enjoyed a juicy Big Mac or savored those delicious salt-covered French fries. Imagine going up to the cashier and placing your order to a smiling face. Now imagine that smiling face isn’t a smiling face at all. Instead, it’s a screen and you’re ordering from a kiosk. In some cities with raising labor costs, this imagination is becoming a reality.

McDonald’s franchises across the U.S. are starting to plan ahead as cities like Los Angeles, New York and Seattle plan to raise minimum wage in the coming years.

McDonald’s has unveiled their plan to replace cashiers with order kiosks, which will ultimately be more cost effective to build and maintain the skyrocketing minimum wage of $15 an hour that some cities have passed.
This is one of the main arguments for those of us against raising the minimum wage; when you raise the minimum wage, you have to make cuts to keep your bottom line. Contrary to what the left believes, many small businesses are not raking in major surpluses and will not be able to sustain doubling their labor costs without cutting some of their employees’ hours and even jobs.

When a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour was suggested in 2014, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the result would be 500,000 lost jobs.

Democrat lawmakers and gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke proposed the same minimum wage increase in 2014, even though the Employment Policies Institute estimated Wisconsin would lose over 27,000 jobs. Thankfully, Gov. Scott Walker was re-elected and our economy was not crushed by unsustainable labor costs.

The bottom line is raising the minimum wage will raise labor costs and in turn, employers will reduce their workforce. Raising the minimum wage will increase unemployment.

Another argument for raising the minimum wage is that it will decrease the amount of people living in poverty. But studies have found raising the minimum wage does not reduce poverty. In fact, in many ways, raising the minimum wage will hurt millions of Americans living in poverty.

It’s estimated that less than 15 percent of the total increase in wages resulting from a minimum wage increase would go to those living below the poverty line. Meanwhile, it would lead to layoffs that would send more Americans to the unemployment category.

Roughly 60 percent of those considered poor do not work, and therefore would not see the benefits of a minimum wage increase anyway. A minimum wage increase would only increase the number of people not working, as more less-skilled workers would lose their jobs and move below the poverty line. While they wouldn’t reap the benefits, they would feel the negative impact when they decide to go look for a job and employers are no longer hiring.

Among the largest supporters of the minimum wage increase are unions. One in particular is Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which led the charge for the $15 minimum wage.

But they subtly requested an exemption from the increase to protect themselves from the consequences of a drastic wage increase of this kind.

The exemption would mean their union would be the only way to hire employers for less than the $15 minimum wage, monopolizing the hiring community to one union that wishes to be exempt from the very law they lobbied for.

Ultimately, minimum wage jobs are meant to sustain young people as entry-level experiences, not life-long careers.

We’ll let the Democrats talk about how low they want to set wages. Meanwhile, Republicans will be working to give people the tools and education they need to succeed in jobs that pay far more than the minimum wage.

Alex Walker is a junior majoring in political science and Ryan Karow is a senior majoring in accounting.