Living Wage Topic Analysis

Resolved: The United States ought to require that workers receive a living wage.

1 – Intro

1.1 – Topicality

1.1.1 – Workers

Cambridge defines a worker as “someone who works in a particular job … for a company or organization but does not have a powerful position[.]” This definition would indicate that the resolution does not entail providing freelancers or people without jobs a living wage as these people do not work for a “company or organization.” This makes me wonder if negatives could exploit this definition as a major hole in the aff because there would be millions of unemployed people who would be left in the dust by the aff. This definition also leaves me to think that the aff can not be a Universal Basic Income or a Federal Jobs Guarantee because the government would only be allowed to help people employed by companies (of course the aff may be able to provide a UBI for just employed people, but that seems ridiculous). The overall takeaway, should be that the aff can only change the wage for people employed by companies, thereby causing some people – i.e. freelancers – to be ignored.

1.1.2 – Living Wage

What a living wage is, will be the most debated definition in the resolution. The overall view is that it “provides individuals with enough income to support themselves without falling below the federal poverty line.” How this is determined or what this looks like is up for debate. A common tool that comes up in the literature is the MIT Living Wage Calculator which calculates an appropriate living wage based on various factors like a person’s family size or location; numerous calculators like this exist and it is likely that aff’s will defend one – on the other hand, I think negatives could criticize an aff for their investment in big data systems due to systemic biases that are often overlooked. The literature doesn’t only say that family size or location should be a deciding factor in a living wage; it often talks about adapting with inflation. The national minimum wage established in 2009 has lost tremendous value over the past 15 years, but a living wage would have allowed the value to stay the same by adapting with inflation, thereby ensuring that people are not being paid less and less in terms of value. A minimum wage is not a living wage but a living wage uses a minimum wage – the only difference is that a living wage is often higher and adapts to the environment to ensure people can live comfortably.

1.1.3 – Subsets

In my understanding, aff’s probably aren’t semantically allowed to use subsets to prove the resolution true because 1) ‘workers’ is a generic plural in the resolution which indicates that it needs to be proven entirely to prove the resolution true and 2) aff’s probably can’t use subsets because then they wouldn’t be requiring something entirely which would not in fact meet the burden of ‘requiring.’ Of course, there still is an argument to be made that pragmatics should come first and that subsets would be good for debate. 

1.2 – Background

1.2.1 – History

The US has never had a living wage (nationally), but they have a history of having a minimum wage. During the great depression, a minimum wage of $0.25/hour was set. It was raised to $1.60/hour in 1968 and set to the current rate of $7.25/hour in 2009. Despite only having a minimum wage on the national level, Baltimore established a living wage in the 1990s that continues to be tracked. About 120 cities in the US also have a living wage – there is not a lot of information on the, but it may be worth checking out.

1.2.2 – Examples

The concept of a living wage is not too prevalent around the world, unfortunately. Australia is probably the best example of a living wage, having a one since 2007 that increases every year based on an analysis by the Fair Work Commission.

2 – Affirming

2.1 – Inequality

I predict that this will be one of the most common aff arguments; the majority of affirmative debaters are going to talk about how a living wage is key to overcoming inequality in the country right now because it ensures that people are able to keep up with growing economic pressures that we hear about everyday. I think this argument is pretty self explanatory so I will leave it at that

2.2 – Economy

Debaters interested in big stick arguments are going to want to look here. I think a strong argument to be made on the aff is that a living wage is key to a strong economy by empowering the people to invest back into the economy. This will allow debaters to access big impacts re like economic stagflation where the economy is falling behind and therefore falling apart. Solvency may be harder to prove for an argument like this but there is certainly an argument to be made.

2.3 – Unions

I think that there are a lot of arguments around unions that can be made. For starters, a living wage could empower unions by giving them a legal basis to fight for higher wages (for instance, a union could claim that a wage is not good enough for a living, therefore the respective company needs to pay more). Empowering unions could allow debaters to access a variety of impacts like addressing inequality or promoting democracy which could be used for a variety of angles from soft-left aff’s to big stick extinction level aff’s. Empowering unions isn’t the only argument to made; aff’s could also say they are the action that meets worker demands for a living wage – this in turn could link to impacts like democracy by showing support for what the people want.

2.4 – Omnilateral Will (Kant)

There is certainly an argument to be made using Kant’s omnilateral will. Debaters could say that a living wage is needed for universalizability because a living wage would ensure that people are able to become more autonomous and people would be treated as an end instead of a means (because they would be paid what they are worth (arguably)).

2.5 – Subsets

During the topicality section of this topic analysis I did say that subsets are probably semantically incorrect, but it doesn’t mean that aff’s can’t try to say that it is good for debate under a pragmatic approach. With this in mind, I think it could be worthwhile for aff’s to specify specific industries to guarantee a living wage in. For instance, aff’s could specify the steel sector as a way to strengthen the American steel industry for whatever terminal impacts are appropriate. Though it would likely require an intense T debate, running a plan that specifies a subset may be a smart choice to wiggle out of big DA’s like inflation.

3 – Negating

3.1 – Economy

Economic arguments are by far the strongest claims for the negative to make. There is a lot of evidence on wage increases hurting the economy. Negatives can say that businesses will have to fire employees and raise prices to compensate for the higher wage requirements or small businesses will be extremely hurt by the new wage requirements – both arguments will allow for an economic downturn internal link that can be used for big stick impacts or even turn affirmatives that have to do with supporting the economy or reducing economic inequality. There’s not much to say; the argument is just a matter of “the economy is good now, the aff wrecks the economy with a living wage, a wrecked economy is bad for XYZ reasons.”

3.2 – Capitalism Kritik

As simple as it is, the Cap K is going to be a very common and strategic argument for debaters to use on this topic. The link is going to be simple; it will say that the aff is not extreme enough in combating capitalism and, instead, reifies the system because it gives workers an incentive to continue working in the abusive system instead of revolting against it. The K will allow negative debaters to turn common aff arguments on big stick economic issues and economic inequality because they can easily win that capitalism is a root cause of those harms.

3.3 – Elections DA

With the 2024 presidential election around the corner, negatives can argue that the extremeness or shorthand effects of a living wage would cause voters to change their minds and vote for Trump instead of Harris. This would cause the election to go to Trump instead of Harris therefore leading to a plethora of impacts such as harm to democracy, climate change, or international tension because of a Trump presidency.

3.4 – Offshoring

A strong argument for aff’s to make is that companies would circumvent the affirmative by moving their work to other countries with lower labor standards to avoid having to pay a living wage. This could lead to worse working conditions for people in other countries or it could damage American industry. This argument would be a strong way to attack affirmative solvency.

4 – Closing Thoughts

I’m not too excited about this topic and I’m worried that many debates are going to end up being bland due to a lack of literature and diversity of arguments to be made. I hope that debaters are able to find unique ways to interpret the topic and argue for and against a living wage to ensure that every debate round is not the same.