Resolved: Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.

Def-

Justice- according to HMP Communications, justice is the concept involving

fairness, equality, and equitable treatment.
(http://www.annalsoflongtermcare.com/article/8210)
Therefore, in order for a government to be just, it must have equality.
V: Equality- According to Oxford, equality is defined as the state of being equal,
especially in status, rights, and opportunities.
(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/equality)

If someone is derived the opportunity of life, education, or social equality, they are being
treated unequally, which means we are not achieving justice. Therefore a just government
would reduce factors that hamper these opportunities.
VC: Minimizing Poverty- Poverty is defined by the business dictionary as the condition
where people's basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter are not being met.
(http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/poverty.html)
Prefer my VC bc poverty harms education, life, and social equality.
C1) Poverty hampers equal opportunity
A) Gender Inequality
Women are disproportionately harmed by poverty.
Snarr, C.Melissa. "WOMENS WORKING POVERTY Feminist And Religious Alliances In
The Living Wage Movement." Indiana University. December 09, 2014. Web. December
07, 2014. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jfs/summary/v027/27.1.snarr.html>.
In the last several years, the gender gap in poverty has held steady with women.This gap
exists
across most racial/ethnic groups. 26.1 percent of black women fall below the federal poverty line
compared to 22.5 percent of black men, 25.9 percent of Hispanic women compared to 22.5
percent of Hispanic men, and 11.3 percent of white women compared to 9.6 percent of white
men. Moreover, while poverty rates for men and women are relatively the same in childhood,
they increase significantly for women in their childbearing years.12

B) Racial Inequality

Minorities are harmed by poverty

University of Michigan 2010
Poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics greatly exceed the national average. In 2010,
27.4 percent of blacks and 26.6 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared to 9.9
percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12.1 percent of Asians. Poverty rates are highest for
families headed by single women, particularly if they are black or Hispanic. In 2010,
31.6 percent of households headed by single women were poor, over half that of single
men.

American Psychological Association

Ethnic and Racial Minorities & Socioeconomic Status
(Corcoran & Nichols-Casebolt, 2004).
African American children are three times more likely to live in poverty than Caucasian children.

C) Poverty kills, deriving those of the opportunity of life

Poverty Kills
James Gilligan, Department of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School, Violence: Reflections on Our
Deadliest Epidemic, 2000, p 195-196.
The 14 to 18 million deaths a year cause by structural violence compare with about 100,000 deaths per year from armed conflict. Comparing this frequency of deaths from structural violence to
the frequency of those caused by major military and political violence, such as World War II (an estimated 49 million military and civilian deaths, including those caused by genocide--or about
eight million per year, 1935-1945), the Indonesian massacre of 1965-1966 (perhaps 575,000 deaths), the Vietnam war (possibly two million, 1954-1973), and even a hypothetical nuclear
exchange between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R (232 million), it was clear that even war cannot begin to compare with structural violence, which continues year after year.

In other word,

every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed
in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from
poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an
ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide, perpetrated on the weak and poor every year of every decade,
throughout the world.

D) Poverty traps people in a continuous cycle

CULTURE OF POVERTY
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Culture_of_Poverty.aspx
The theory of a culture of poverty was created by the anthropologist Oscar Lewis in his
1959 book, Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty. The culture of poverty
theory states that living in conditions of pervasive poverty will lead to the development of a
culture or subculture adapted to those conditions. This culture is characterized by pervasive
feelings of helplessness, dependency, marginality, and powerlessness. Furthermore, Lewis
described individuals living within a culture of poverty as having little or no sense of history and
therefore lacking the knowledge to alleviate their own conditions through collective action, instead
focusing solely on their own troubles. Thus, for Lewis, the imposition of poverty on a population was
the structural cause of the development of a culture of poverty, which then becomes autonomous,
as behaviors and attitudes developed within a culture of poverty get passed down to subsequent
generations through socialization processes.

Overall, we can see poverty has an incredibly detrimental effect on equality. In order for
a government to have even a chance to be just, it must try and solve for poverty.

C2) LW decreases poverty

A) Creating jobs decreases poverty
United Nations(UN) Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)

- Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (Found

7/10/14) http://undesadspd.org/Poverty/PovertyandEmployment.aspx

Unemployment and underemployment lies at the core of poverty. For the poor, labour is often
the only asset they can use to improve their well-being. Hence the creation of productive
employment opportunities is essential for achieving poverty reduction and sustainable economic
and social development. It is crucial to provide decent jobs that both secure income and
empowerment for the poor, especially women and younger people.
So, by increasing employment we decrease poverty.

Paying employees means consumers can pay more, therefore make more money
and increase employment
Sanghoee 2, 2012
what really determines the success of a business, and therefore its hiring capacity, is
consumer demand, which accounts for 70 percent of our GDP and which depends upon
the buying power of workers and their wages. The less people get paid, the less they
can buy to support the very businesses that employ them. At worst, the negative effect
on employment of a higher wage would be counterbalanced by increased business
activity and likely short-lived.
As businesses gain more money due to consumers spending, they are able to hire more
workers. This is why employment increases when wages increase.

LW decreases unemployment
Hanauer 13
In 60 percent of the states that raised the minimum wage during periods of high
unemployment, job growth was faster than the national average.
Thus, we can see by providing a living wage, we decrease poverty and ensure gov legit.
Subpoint B) Low turnover decreases Poverty
J. Econ. (journal of economics) (2002)
The amount of low income turnover is relatively high, given that about 41% of those just falling
below the poverty line are predicted to leave after only one year. However, almost 10% of those
ending a poverty spent will again have income below the poverty line after the first year; within
four years, 20% of the poverty escapers will have fallen back in poverty.

So we can obviously see that high turnover has an negative effect on poverty. So in order for the
gov. to min poverty and fulfill its obligation, it also needs to decrease turnover.

Living Wage helps boosts productivity and prevents turnover.

Troutman, Katey. February 12, 2014.
A living wage can boost workers morale, making them more productive and more loyal
to the company, effectively helping to stymie issues of rapid turnover before it even
starts. According to the Economist, Barclays found that its staffs retention rate
increased from 54% to 77% following the introduction of a livable wage.
By increasing wages, we increase morale and loyalty, and decrease turnover. This can
be seen in an analysis of living vs non-living wage firms.
Fairris (2005)

Labor turnover has declined as a result of the [living wage] ordinance. Current rates of
turnover at living wage firms average 32 percent, compared to 49 percent at
comparable non-living wage firms. A wage increase may lead to a decrease in
employee turnover for two different reasons. First, workers may value the job more at a
higher wage level, and be less likely to leave voluntarily for a better-paying job. The
control group analysis measured changes in turnover for living wage and non-living
wage firms by asking whether turnover increased, decreased or stayed the same. onethird (saw) a decrease in turnover, more than double the percentage for non-living wage
firms.
Overall employment increases and turnover decreases. Because of this poverty will go
down. This is proved by the Congressional Budget Office.
A $10.10 minimum wage would bring 900000 out of poverty.
, CongressionalBudgetOffice. "The Effects Of A Minimum-Wage Increase On Employment
And Family Income." Congress of the United States. July 02, 2014. Web. December 05, 2014.
<http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/44995-MinimumWage.pdf>.
Under current law, CBO projects, there will be roughly 45 million people in families whose
income is below the poverty threshold in 2016. The $10.10 option would reduce that
number by about 900,000, or 2 percent, according to CBOs estimate. That estimate takes
into account both families whose income would increase and move them out of poverty and
families whose income would fall and move them into poverty.

Overall, the living wage increases consumer spending, business profit, increases
employment, decreases turnover and decreases poverty. Because decreasing poverty
saves lives and increases gov legit, please affirm.