...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...
Words: 478 - Pages: 2
...Minimum wage has been a problem in many states simply because people believe that their pay isn’t enough and should be raised to support themselves and others. But why should minimum wage be raised? I believe otherwise because the US raising minimum wage can cause problems for us, don’t you think? I believe minimum wage shouldn’t be raised. I believe that raising minimum wage can destroy businesses. The government raising minimum wage can destroy those small companies that already cannot afford to pay their employees more than the minimum wage. No company would want to lose their business because they are trying to pay employees more when they know they can’t afford it. If a person really thinks about it they will be able to see that if businesses did start to pay more than the minimum wage many people can lose their jobs. In the article, For the first time, majority of states have minimum wage above federal level, Charlene Conway a co-owner of the Carousel Family Fun Center will have to lay off staff members to be able to pay more money to the employee’s “ She might have to layoff several members of her 40 person staff and totally eliminate the younger workforce”...
Words: 595 - Pages: 3
...Recession, 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...
Words: 713 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 724 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 682 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 638 - Pages: 3
...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…”...
Words: 919 - Pages: 4
...The national average for the minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. This is the lowest amount that an employer can compensate its workers legally. Basically it is the lowest wage that a worker can sell their labor at. The federal minimum wage should be raised for two reasons, it keeps up with rising living costs, and it boosts the economy. But on the other side the opponents will say it increases poverty and unemployment. The first reason that the federal minimum wage should be increased is because of the rising cost of living. Raising the national living wage will allow workers to better support their families and keep up with the economy. The last time congress raised the national average of pay was seven years ago. Since that time, the cost of living has dramatically shot up. According to an article on USA Today’s website, groceries cost 20% more, a gallon of gas costs 25% more, and average tuition at a community college increased 44%, if...
Words: 790 - Pages: 4
...has voted to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour to provide people working in retail and other industries with salaries that can raise them above the poverty line. This is great for employees who have long struggled to make ends meet. Some, though—like the Ontario Chamber of Commerce—are claiming such an increase will “ruin” businesses. Though unlikely, the question does remain: What effect will a minimum wage increase have on retailers and their bottom lines? While you prepare your business by finding automation solutions to decrease overhead costs, here are some likely possibilities for how the wage increase will affect retailers. The Cost of Living Some debate rages on whether retailers will have to downsize staff or raise prices in order to manage the increase in staff wages. Some believe that a minimum wage increase will force up the cost of products across the board, affecting retail businesses on a razor’s edge, thus raising the cost of living and negating the wage increase in the first place. The truth remains that if people cannot afford the cost of living, then they certainly will not be able to afford new products. Though the immediate cost is bound to be jarring, retailers will likely be able to find a balance that will, in the long run, be beneficial to their employees and show a good will...
Words: 536 - Pages: 3
...Federal Minimum Wage Proposal Research Essay MDH-ECO210 President Obama has proposed to increase the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 as well as increase the Earned Income Tax Credit among other items associated with this. There are those who oppose the increase to Federal Minimum Wage as well as those who support this proposal. What we have to question when looking at this increase is whether or not it will actually help the economy or if it will simply raise costs of everything we buy on a daily basis. It is necessary that “businesses need to have money available to pay for labor, materials, power, and other inputs” (McConnell, Brue, Flynn, 315). It is debated if raising minimum wage will stifle these businesses, by increasing their pay rate for labor. There are many factors to consider when looking at this proposal that has a multitude of pros and cons. If this constant debate continues as it has in the previous instances then the typical result will be that most Republicans will oppose the proposal while the majority of Democrats will be in favor of passing the bill. President Obama is quoted as saying in his State of the Union address that “in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty” (Hassett, Strain, 2013). The case that is made against raising the minimum wage is very simple; by raising the minimum wage it makes it more expensive for businesses to hire employees. Those who retain their jobs will make more money;...
Words: 1564 - Pages: 7
...Argumentative Essay: Is it really worth it? LABR 1F90 Haseeb Mohammad 5591979 T.A – Nathan Cecckin March 25, 2016 “I do not support raising the minimum wage, and the reason is as follows. When the minimum wage is raised, workers are priced out of the market. That is the economic reality that seems, at least so far, to be missing from this discussion.” as John Sununu states, raising minimum wage is not a great decision. The minimum wage rate must not increase for the reason that this will put many firms out of business, and will also lower the employment rate. Assuming firms are employing resources at maximum efficiency, increasing the labor wages will cause immense damage. An increase in minimum wage will not help our economic system become efficient; in order to allow our economy to run smoothly there mustn’t be an increase in labor wages. Increasing wage rates will increase the unemployment rate resulting in an increase in inflation allowing an increase in poverty, increasing the minimum wage rate will also increase the expenses for businesses, and lastly it will also affect a majority of high school students. If the industries suppliers’ prices increase along with the wages many industries will start to go bankrupt because of the decrease in demand for the industries’ products, resulting in a decrease of employment for low skilled workers, or young people just as Niels Veldhuis & Sylvia LeRoy explain in their academic journal, “Specifically, he concluded...
Words: 1437 - Pages: 6
...The minimum wage rate is introduced in this essay, with the perspectives of weighing the benefits with that of the costs of the national minimum wage. The essay goes about discovering what exactly is minimum wage and how it impacts the economy. Moreover, the advantages are compared against the disadvantages of the minimum wage rate. Furthermore, it also covers the detailed consequences of increased minimum wage after a research on what economists have surveyed about the recent increase in the minimum wage. Thus, this essay has thoroughly evaluated the pros and cons of implying with the law to allow for national minimum wage in the labor market. The minimum wage act was created in the 1938T as Fair Labor Standards Act, which makes it legally compulsory for the employers to pay their employees for the period of time worked. The minimum wage could be defined as the “minimum rate of remuneration that is must to be paid to a wage employees for the work they have done over a period of time, which cannot be neglected or reduced by individual contract and collective agreement”. The eligibility of minimum wage is that it is allotted to workers who are below 20 years old, for long as the probationary period lasts that is for almost 3 months. The minimum wage rate...
Words: 1311 - Pages: 6
...Paul Krugman begins this article by asking the audience why rising inequality matters. This positions him to lead into the reasons why it is important to lower and middle class American’s. Coupled with his examples of importance, he suggests policy reform to help fix these issues. Krugman believes the middle class is disintegrating; he uses a simple quote from Thomas Jefferson to bring forward the idea that men who believed the middle class to be the most important part of the nation founded our country. He addresses the opposition that economic inequality is now balanced by social equality. Moving forward he breaks down the argument with the fact that middle class parents are willing to indebt themselves more than ever before in order to...
Words: 447 - Pages: 2
...later. They are the fallacies of overlooking secondary consequences and only striking the eye. Hazlitt (2008) showed that the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson and the core problem with economic policies can be reduced to a sentence: people should look beyond, looking not merely at the direct but at the longer effects of any policy, then the consequences of the policy influence on all groups rather than merely one specific group. This essay will focus on the application of minimum wage laws. The labour unions and legislation are the main power to create the minimum wages (Brown, 1988). In France, for instance, the minimum wages are extensions of existing trade union legislation. Minimum wage laws are the body of laws which prohibit employers from hiring employees or workers for less than a given hourly, daily or monthly minimum wages. The final purpose of regulate the minimum wages is boosting the production and encouraging the consumption of the employees who have low income. However, these wage laws ignore one real issue, the unemployment. In reality, the employers will not hire the employees who cannot produce goods or provide service. Then the unable workers will be fired by their leaders, which lead to the issue of unemployment. Considering the high costs, these entrepreneurs will shut down their business, because they...
Words: 1129 - Pages: 5
...problem of income inequality. There are constantly debates over the topic of raising the minimum wage, and with good reason: Between 1979 and 2009, the wealthiest 5 percent of American families saw income increases of 72.7 percent, while the lowest income group in America saw a decrease of 7.4 percent in income. Meanwhile, in the same time frame, productivity has increased by 90 percent. These issues combined have caused a huge wealth gap in America. This is primarily due, of course, to the selfish materialism of those higher-ups who prefer to have millions of dollars for themselves while the very citizens that work for them barely have enough to feed themselves. While this conflict has not yet become violent, it could do so quickly. Think of the French Revolution in the 18th century. It was caused by the poor finally rebelling against the rich who oppressed them. Already, in the present, there are some forms of rebellion, albeit nonviolent. The Occupy Wall Street Movement has protested this income inequality. While there are many different viewpoints on the subject, one solution to this issue is simple in theory: Those with more must give to those with less. If the millionaire CEOs, whose incomes have more than quadrupled since the 1980s, would be willing to sacrifice some of their money so that the workers could just afford to live, the conflict could be solved. Raising the minimum wage and allowing workers a higher income is the simplest and easiest solution that...
Words: 913 - Pages: 4
