PAMANTASAN NG LUNGSOD NG VALENZUELA

Poblacion II, Malinta Valenzuela City

A Minimum Wage as An Ethical Issue

By: Beyza Sumer

As I reflect from what I have read, I realized that Minimum Wage is something that sometimes

goes out of a line. And here there are two parties involve the employer and the employee. But first, I’ll

define what’s Minimum Wage, the latter is the lowest remuneration that employers can

legally pay their workers. It is the lowest wage per hour that a worker may be paid, as mandated by

law. Equivalently, it is the price floor below which workers may not sell their labor.

In the viewpoint of an employee it is his source of income, his source of living, and a motivation

to continue. But on the other side, the employer, it is his expense that could depreciate the income or

profit that he may gain or it may contribute to appreciate the loss he is incurring. That’s why in the

topic tackled by Beyza Sumer entitled A Minimum Wage as An Ethical Issue. It is important that

Minimum wage shouldn’t be looked at as cost minimizing and profit maximizing because it may affect

a lot of lives who are dependent with the compensation they are gaining. There are different

theoretical proposition about Minimum wage. The former means that are statements in the form of

sentences or equations, of relations between constructs. Constructs, in turn, comprise symbolic

representations of relations among variables, which consist of classes of objects, events, or their

properties. These comprises different viewpoint of economists including Karl Marx, John Rawls,

Robert Nozick, and more. They argue the idea of how and at what certain level may a Minimum

wage must be imposed. Some says that cost overhead must be included in the consideration while

the others take a look about the financial capability of a worker or the way it lives. But what caught me

the most is the statement that I have read where “ Minimum wage can be and should be regarded as

an ethical issue in itself to support the needy, vulnerable, low-income workers.”

 PAMANTASAN NG LUNGSOD NG VALENZUELA
Poblacion II, Malinta Valenzuela City

Speaking of an ethical issue, Minimum Wage could also be threat to workers, especially to

those who are unskilled or low skilled workers. Setting a higher minimum wage than it used before

may suffer those individuals indicated earlier. Since there is a higher pay rate the employers will also

demand more skilled workers. And as a result it may cause to a jobless unskilled or low skilled

workers. But as far as I remember, a company’s mission statement included a concern for employee.

Where a company must take care of its employee, give a consideration as he can, because for me it

doesn’t matter how skilled an employee is, it’s the matter of making him feel important. Since, as your

employee feel that way for sure he will exert an extra effort in his work, for you to be rewarded.

To conclude, I fully realized that Minimum Wage shouldn’t be taken as any microeconomic

implications because it will only lead the employer to be a hungry profit centred monster. Thus, take

Minimum wage within an ethical framework and be a humanitarian in nature.

Ma. Azmyla A. Fullon

BSA 4-1
PAMANTASAN NG LUNGSOD NG VALENZUELA
Poblacion II, Malinta Valenzuela City
PAMANTASAN NG LUNGSOD NG VALENZUELA
Poblacion II, Malinta Valenzuela City