...Minimum Wages Sandra Matterson Comm/215 Essentials of College Writing November 13, 2014 Kate McCarty Minimum Wages Minimum wage is defined as "the lowest wages permitted by law or by a special agreement (such as one with a labor union)". Minimum wage is a controversial topic in economics and politics because there are good and bad intentions behind it. Many employers are against the increase of minimum wages, especially ones with a large amount of minimum wage workers. Although some employers agree that employees deserve an increase. When an employer has a business that gets big enough to need additional employees, they hire more since they are unable to do the work themselves. The goal is the additional money they bring in must be more than what they are paying their staff. As a business owner what can you do? If you raise prices it will drive customers a way. Some companies have created automated services likes self-check out to prevent paying higher wages to workers. $10.00 equals one fast food meal, 2 gallons of milk and a loaf of bread, or a little over two gallons of gas. Which now they want to add taxes on our gas. With minimum wage at the current rate you must work one hour to earn the ten dollars that only supply you with small necessities for everyday living. And in order to make it in this economy you would either have to work over-time just to make ends meat. So for example: I make $10.50 an hour and I tend to work between 90-120 hours in a two week pay...
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...bringing a federal minimum wage of 25 cents into effect. FLSA was written to help workers and many supporters believed it would help those that were low-income families. Originally FLSA covered 38 percent of the labor force, mostly in the manufacturing, mining, and transportation industries (Wilson, 2012). Over the decades, Congress has increased the areas of labor force such as air transport (1947), retail (1961), construction industry, public schools, farms, laundries and nursing homes (1966) (Wilson, 2012). In the most current of time FLSA covers about 85 percent of the labor force. Since FLSA inception minimum wages have been raised a total of 22 times. The current federal wage is _____, and Arizona’s current minimum wage is $8.05 per hour. Due to Proposition 202, Arizona’s minimum wage will annually increased on January 1, 2016 and so on....
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...The Effectiveness of Raising Minimum Wage Since minimum wage has come into existence, raising the wage has become a heated topic for debate. President Obama said it best in his “State of the Union Address” in 2014. He said, “In the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.” Yes, the current rate of $7.25 an hour averages out to about 14,000 dollars a year, which falls short of the poverty guideline of 17,000 per year. Therefore, I believe that minimum wage should be raised to deliver people out of poverty and restore their dignity, to boost the economy, and to provide for a better education. Minimum wage has been kept to $7.25 per hour for the last 8 years because the federal...
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...present their solutions to this issue. The minimum wage has been presented as a viable option in solving this issue of poverty that allegedly plagues the nation. The first federal wage regulations were passed under FDR in the 1930s, and many states already had their own wage regulations in place. Recently, there has been a growing movement for a substantial increase in the federal minimum wage. Many large cities and several states have increased their minimum wage or have begun working towards a higher minimum wage over the next several...
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...Better employment means better minimum wage that will keep individuals earning enough to keep them out of poverty. Not a few or a couple, but many states and municipalities have all uplifted their minimum wages knowing that the federal minimum wage was just too low and waiting was not going to change anything. According to the article, “$10.10 Minimum Wage Could Actually Create New Jobs: Study” from The Huffington Post by Jillian Berman the EPI’s report concludes a growing body of evidence that, “raising the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 per hour would help a large swath of Americans...that a $10.10 minimum wage would have been enough to push more than half of the nation’s 10-million plus working poor out of poverty in 2011” (Berman Para. 5). The minimum wage that low-waged workers earn for a family of two is not even enough to support basic needs and living expenses. In fact a study from a July analysis from Wider...
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...seven to eight years ago, about 8.4 million jobs were lost and 14.3% of Americans were living in poverty. Several years later, the government is still trying to get the Economy back on its feet. Democrats say that raising the minimum wage will increase earnings for millions of workers leading to cash flow which will stimulate the economy. Republicans say that although increasing the minimum wage would help many Americans by increasing their earnings, many Americans would also experience job loss. Increasing the minimum wage would help the economy greatly but could also hurt many of the low-income families. Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune, brings up a great point stating that raising the minimum wage is not an effective way to address the poverty issue America faces. When raising the minimum wage, not only will the families living in low-income housing be affected, but also young adults with their first jobs and teenagers working after school. This is a concern because these students aren’t the ones who need the help; it is the families with 5 children who...
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...Minimum wage The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 established the minimum wage, overtime pay, record keeping and child labor standards (Minimum Wage - Wage and Hour Division (WHD). For the purpose of this assignment, the primary focus will be on minimum wage. The minimum wage is a price floor set at a minimum price for labor per hour. The intention for minimum wage is to help alleviate poverty, workers are guaranteed hourly pay, protection of minimum living standards, and employee labor wage equality. Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 and has been in effective since July 24, 2009. Although many states have their own minimum wage laws, which may be above the federal minimum wage, states must comply with both state...
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...Our minimum wage is not enough. There are hard-working people who can’t make ends meet. People work 60 hours a week at one job and then 20 at another. I know jobs that pay minimum wage require little skill, but people work hard and should be compensated accordingly. If someone is struggling to take care of themselves, they would definitely have a hard time providing for a family even on their 60 hour work week. If someone worked 160 hours in a month (4 40 hour weeks) they would only make $1160 before taxes. On average the cost of an apartment in our area is between $600-$1300 per month. Even if you paid the minimum $600 that’s still 51% of someone’s check, excluding utilities, food, car, etc. Chris Lu of Time.com explained how a $15 dollar...
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...only get paid minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is set at $7.25, as of 2009. Over the past 79 years, the national minimum wage has been raised 22 times (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). The wage has been increased due to inflation, or the decrease in value of currency. With inflation, everyday objects cost more than they did 70 years ago. The minimum wage today is less compared to the minimum wage of 1981. The base pay needs to be raised for the good of the people, and the good of the country. Increasing minimum wage in the United States will reduce its poverty, boost economic activity, and benefit and reward...
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...Minimum wage has always been a controversial topic ever since the Fair Labor Standards Act took effect back in 1938. The goal Congress was trying to impose with the Fair Labor Law was to keep families out of poverty and to protect non-unionized workers in unskilled jobs. This law has failed us, being that the cost of living (rent, food, gas, taxes, utilities, healthcare, and transportation) continues to rise and the minimum wage stays at a plateau, resulting in parents not being able to provide all the necessities for their families. The United States should increase the minimum wage because the low wages are the cause for deteriorating health in American society; and the current minimum wage has more than 45 million people living below the poverty line. Raising the minimum wage would not only lift families out of poverty, but can also improve health outcome by increasing financial access to resources and opportunities. Americans living on minimum wage are more likely to experience adverse health outcomes, including higher rates of chronic illness and disability and lower life expectancies, because wages affect a person’s ability to access healthy foods. Low-wage workers are less likely to get decent health care because they cannot afford it. Low wages can cause stress because they may not know how they will pay rent...
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...Minimum wage is one of the number one issues in America. There are debates on whether minimum wage needs a raise or stay the same. The current minimum wage in California is $10.50 per hour. Most people that work under minimum wage work more than 60 hours a week. Those people that work under minimum wage are most likely to live in poverty. People can not earn a living on minimum wage. This is why minimum wage needs to be raised. One reason minimum wage needs a raise is because it leads to a healthier population and less premature deaths. Over the past few years, fast food prices drop while the healthier food prices increase. The author states that in “many poverty-dense regions, people are unable to access affordable healthy food, even when...
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...The United States’ minimum wage is absurdly lower than what is realistically required to survive in today’s economy. Hard working, impoverished citizens file countless applications for welfare and food stamps every day. These government aid programs are costing us billions of dollars. These funds could be re-appropriated for studying green technology, or for providing much needed maintenance to our national infrastructure. In any event, our system of regulating compensation for services rendered is long overdue for fresh legislation. In the 1930’s, congress passed a bill setting minimum wage at $5.25 an hour. Given the exponential inflation since that time, wages should have increased proportionately to the cost of consumer goods. Unfortunately,...
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...government should raise minimum wage. Raising minimum wage will help the economy and help people buy what they need to live a comfortable life. Raising minimum wage would be very beneficial to our economy. Raising the wage would not only help people by putting more money in their pockets but those people would also buy more goods which would put money back into our economy. Let’s face it, the cost of living has gone up significantly in the last decade or so. People need more money in order to live a comfortable life. People need money to be able to afford vital things such as food, transportation, education, healthcare, life insurance, etc. “Even if one can work full-time, after state and federal taxes and Social Security and Medicare deductions, one is lucky to retain $225 a week or $12,000 a year, which is precisely the threshold of poverty for a single person (Komlos, “Column: Why”).” If...
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...Minimum wage in California is predicted to increase up to $15.00 an hour by the year 2023. Most people fighting for an increase in minimum wage are restaurant workers, especially in the fast food industry, dissatisfied with the current minimum wage of about $10.00. Economists, on the other hand, oppose raising the minimum wage for numerous reasons, such as an increase in unemployment, the effects it has on minors, the effects of the free market, and the “-ism”’s that increase. The largest and most often point argued by economists that oppose raising minimum wage is that it increases unemployment. Statistics show that “...in 2013, a $1 increase in the minimum wage was associated with a 1.48 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate…”...
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...New York increased their minimum wage to $15 at the beginning of this year as part of Governor Cuomo’s plan, “Built to Lead Agenda”. This plan “takes the needs of workers and businesses alike into account.” Thus, New York is trying to improve the lives of employees, without hurting the employers in the process. The effects of an increase in minimum wage to workers and companies in New York may be too early to calculate because the year has just begun. Research of other states give insights as to the results of increasing the minimum wage. If New York can increase their minimum wage from $9.70 to $15, can other states follow through? The effects of increasing the minimum wage varies. Supporters believe that an increase in minimum wage “improve...
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