...Overview of the Federal Minimum Wage The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a law that guarantees employees and youth a fair minimum wage and overtime pay. It is regulated by the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL); it mandates employers to pay all nonexempt employees a federal minimum wage no less than the determine amount set by the government (U.S. DOL, 2011). Unfortunately, the federal minimum wage still sits at $7.25 per hour and has remained the same since George W. Bush signed a law to change it on July 24, 2009 (Risher, 2013; U.S. DOL, 2011). So, why did so many government officials decline the increase of the federal minimum wage and why do they fear the positive impact that the increase will have on America? This paper intends to briefly discuss six laws, all pertaining to federal minimum wage introduced to the House of Representatives within a year and highlight one member of the senate who disapproved the law for passing. In addition, this paper will briefly point out statements made about why some Senators chose to decline the bill; and finally, this paper intends to briefly explain any legal issues preventing the wage increase and implications for management. Start of Hope: Minimum Wage Fairness United States senators and representatives have introduced numerous federal minimum wage bills to the House of Representatives in order to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) during their term. These bills were designed to either...
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...aising the minimum wage is a bad idea because it would raise the price of things and would get people fired from minimum wage jobs, since the the owners would have to get more customers and if they don't then they would have to let people go or go out of business. My mom works in a restaurant in Long Beach. She's a cook. They already have about seven people working all together in the small restaurant. Even a sixteen year old is working in the restaurant, that can get up to 80 degrees in the summer time. My mom's restaurant once raised up the prices to see if they would get more money out of it. They did not. My mom said they had to fire someone because not enough money was coming in. When they Lowered the prices everything went back...
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...EN130.1.1 English Composition II Minimum Wage Poverty has become an ever growing problem in the United States. Many programs have been put into place to try and help those suffering from poverty, one is minimum wage, but is minimum wage helping people get out of poverty or keeping them in it? Minimum wage is the lowest possible wage a person can earn despite if the job may be worth more than minimum wage. With that the employees feel they are underpaid, and become unmotivated to perform their job. The government feels that minimum wage is acceptable median to decide a persons wage, but what they don’t take into account anymore is the inflation and cost-of-living that increases each year while minimum wage stays the same, forcing people to work long hours just to barely make enough to pay the bills. Its easy for the government not to care about such topics when they eat $1,000 a plate, which is more than some people make in a month. Although minimum wage was put into order to protect workers, can a minimum wage job really support you in a search for basic standards of living? And if not does the increase in minimum wage really help or hurt people surviving off of it? Its hard to find a good job with no college experience, and its very hard to go to school when you can’t even pay your own bills due to a minimum wage job. It’s a hard situation that isn’t fair to the hard working community of people who manage to keep...
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...have often argued, a raise would have different implications than If these workers were mostly adults struggling to raise a family, as many Democrats contended.” Not even a generation ago, it was said if you were making minimum wage you were most likely a teenager. Who is to tell if a 20 year old mother or a 20 year old college student was trying to take care of themselves on minimum wage, which happens all the time and everywhere? Sholeh says, MIT has developed a living wage calculator and came up with most American families cannot support themselves on minimum wage. How is someone to ever get caught up if they can never run? I work as a minimum wage worker for my past work life. I have never made more than that. I currently have waited tables for 3+ years. I as well get $2.13 hour, each week is about $20. In some these sources can be reliable and creditable. It is nearly impossible to pay bills and keep up in this generation making minimum wage. I am 21 years old and my bills a month are $956. I have no money to ever save. I don’t see that people can make a living on minimum wage unless rooming with someone, or having no bills. I still have the same believes as before reading these opinions. There is no logic for the government to not raise the minimum wage law. As economy rises, and the world mass grows, new developments, millions of dollars being wasted and there is still an excuse to not pay our hard working people a little more of what they deserve. I am pretty clear that...
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...the biggest issues that are going on today is should we raise the minimum wage? According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, “In 2011, 73.9 million American workers age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.1 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum. Together, these 3.8 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 5.2 percent of all hourly-paid workers” (Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers In 2011, 2012). According to the data, there are very few people getting paid at or below the federal minimum wage. Yet, people are complaining that the current wages are not enough. With wages at the current state, people are still living in poverty. With the new Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2015 (H.R. 1010), the minimum wage will rise from $7.25 to $10.10. The debate is whether the increase in wage will either benefit everyone (employees and businesses) or will this increase have negative effects and create more issues instead of fixing them. Will we end up paying more to get less? Background Here is some history on H.R. 1010 or better known as the Fair Minimum Wage Act. “The federal minimum wage originated in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on June 25, 1938. The law established a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour for all employees who produced products shipped...
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...Days I really had no clue what I was in for. I was so excited and the event surpassed my expectations and I was in awe. For this paper I will discuss my professional experience at Advocacy days and the itinerary we had. Then I will discuss my insights to what I observed and what it entailed. I will then describe the legislative process that I was able to see. Last I will use sources to tell you about the controversial issue of minimum wage while we were there. I highly recommend Advocacy Days with the Idaho Chapter of the NASW to anyone looking to get into the social work profession. A great learning experience. My professional experience during these two days was a lot to absorb. The first day...
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...And it will help businesses, too - raising the wage will put more money in people's pockets, which they will pump back into the economy by spending it on goods and services in their communities.” While the technological innovation and scientific revolution has increased, so has the cost of living. This is why minimum wage must go up: because the cost of living has increased. Education is essential to one wishing to work even a minimum wage job, and many people living in the middle-class or poverty level are unable to afford education properly. This exhibits the potential energy of classism bubbling to the surface as economic inequality. Companies should be required to pay workers what they deserve, which is substantially more than what the minimum wage is today. According to a 2015 BLS Report by the United States Government, 35.5 Percent of minimum wage workers are least forty years old and a whopping 56.4% of women.1 Without doubt this opens way to a new piece of evidence to discuss when talking about minimum wage. These companies are vehement to pay the working backbone of their very nature - especially fast-food companies - but have no problem installing self-checkout kiosks in franchises like McDonalds to limit their minimum wage workers. This poses an even more important question than before: if we demand that minimum wage be raised, will...
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...Each one of my paragraphs will talk about income. The amount of income you earn depends on the type of job you have. My career of choice would be a sportscaster. With this job, I will be able to live a lavish lifestyle. This is because the amount of money I will be making should be more than what I actually need. I will have a loving husband, three kids, and a successful career. Each month, I plan to spend a few hundred dollars on bills, groceries, gas, and other necessities. We will occasionally go out to eat, take family vacations, and do fun family activities. To make sure that all my expenses are taken care of, I am going to do my best at finding a career. If I chose to live off of a job that paid minimum wage, I wouldn’t be able...
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...the economy get back to where we are used to seeing is raising the minimum wage. A) Due to the current economic situation, many consumers are having a difficult time purchasing products they need. Consumers cannot save money since the cost of living has increased drastically. Consumers need additional funds and the government is perhaps their best hope to receive that. B) Raising the minimum wage for employees has far more advantages, especially during a time like this, then keeping the minimum wage static. II) One of the reasons that raising the minimum wage is critical is because the cost of living has increased. C) The neglect of increasing the minimum wages over the past 10 years has caused numerous families to suffer into poverty level. Due to the cost of living increasing, more and more families have had to find alternative ways to live a normal life. These challenges over time become more and more difficult and it is becoming too common in our society. D) Most families in large cities need about $30,000-40,000 annual income for bills and necessities alone. This often times can be accomplished if the economy is well and jobs are available. However, due to job troubles and many businesses laying-off employees, there does not seem to be enough money available to pay these residents to earn what is necessary. III) Many people would benefit from a raise in minimum wage. It would benefit taxpayers, poor families, as well as businesses...
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...is to help the economy get back to where we are used to seeing is raising the minimum wage. A) Due to the current economic situation, many consumers are having a difficult time purchasing products they need. Consumers cannot save money since the cost of living has increased drastically. Consumers need additional funds and the government is perhaps their best hope to receive that. B) Raising the minimum wage for employees has far more advantages, especially during a time like this, then keeping the minimum wage static. II) One of the reasons that raising the minimum wage is critical is because the cost of living has increased. C) The neglect of increasing the minimum wages over the past 10 years has caused numerous families to suffer into poverty level. Due to the cost of living increasing, more and more families have had to find alternative ways to live a normal life. These challenges over time become more and more difficult and it is becoming too common in our society. D) Most families in large cities need about $30,000-40,000 annual income for bills and necessities alone. This often times can be accomplished if the economy is well and jobs are available. However, due to job troubles and many businesses laying-off employees, there does not seem to be enough money available to pay these residents to earn what is necessary. III) Many people would benefit from a raise in minimum wage. It would benefit taxpayers, poor families, as well as businesses. E) The group...
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...Race/ethnicity Increasing the minimum wage would substantially benefit both minority and nonminority workers. Figure G reveals that nationally, 54.1 percent of workers who would be affected are non-Hispanic white workers. Nearly a quarter (24.6 percent) are Hispanic, 14.1 percent are black, and 7.1 percent are Asian or of another race or ethnicity. As one would expect given the country’s diverse social and cultural makeup, the racial and ethnic composition of workers affected by increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 varies considerably by state: * The Asian or other race/ethnicity composition ranges from 1.7 percent in West Virginia to 75.9 percent in Hawaii. * The black composition ranges from less than 1 percent in Idaho, Montana, and New Hampshire to 46.5 percent in Mississippi (and 57.1 percent in the District of Columbia). * The Hispanic composition ranges from 0.9 percent in West Virginia to 58.6 percent in California. * The white composition ranges from 10.7 percent in Hawaii to 93.5 percent in Maine. Who would be benefit from Minimum Wage Act? * More than 30 million workers would receive a raise from the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013. * 88% are adults over the age of twenty, 56% are women, nearly half are workers of color, and over 43% have some college education. * More than 17 million children have a parent who would get a raise under the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013. * The average affected worker brought home approximately...
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...indefinitely on a job that pays $7.25 an hour? That is the national minimum wage set by the Fair Labor Standards Act in 2009. Projecting this to a 40-hour work week over 50 weeks it comes to a total of $14,500 a year. This is just above the U.S poverty level for a family of 2, but below the poverty level of $22,050 for a family of 4. Despite the fact that the minimum wage has been increased 3 times since 2007, it is almost $3.00 below what it was nearly forty years ago in purchasing power. It has not kept up with inflation. If it had, the minimum wage would be $10.74 per hour. In other words, the minimum wage is a far cry from being a living wage which is a wage that is high enough for fulltime workers to provide a decent life for themselves and their families. For the benefit of American citizens and the economy, the minimum wage must be increased! Those opposed to an increase in the minimum wage focus on a number of assumptions suggesting it would be a bad idea. Under close examination, all of their arguments fall apart. One of the main arguments for not raising the minimum wage is that it is a job killer. The reasoning is the increase in salary decreases profits and results in cutbacks in hiring. However, a study at the University of California, Berkeley, has shown that raising the minimum wage does not have a negative effect on employment. An analysis of those states that independently increased the minimum wage “had job growth slightly above the national average.” Another...
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...Minimum Wage in Austin Texas In Austin Texas minimum wage is barely enough to live on, living within a very tight budget. I chose the job of a lifeguard working at the YMCA of Hays County. The starting pay for this job is $8.00 an hour or $1386.66 a month. This is if I can work a full 40 hours a week. I plan on working my full time hours and try to work overtime as it is available. If I am not able to get in my full 40 hours a week I will be unable to meet my budget. In the next paragraph I will go over all of my expenses for one month. I own a car that was a gift to me. The expenses for the car are $50 a month for upkeep and repairs. I will have car insurance for $208 a month. I live 10 miles from my job and drive an average of 25 miles a day. Gas is $3.77 a gallon. This averages out to $170 a month for gas. I rent a two-bedroom apartment in Buda, Texas. I have 1 roommate. The total rent is $745 a month and we split the rent in half. My portion of the rent is $372.50 a month. My part of the electricity is $50. My part of the water bill is $30. We have Time Warner Cable for our home phone, cable, and internet. My portion of the cable bill is $45 a month. I have AT&T for a cell phone and that costs $50 a month. The USDA estimates that my average food bill for one male a month will be $234.20 based on a low cost plan. My health insurance offered through my job is $45 a month. My Social Security Tax is $55 dollars a month. I have budgeted myself for $75 a month...
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...Fast Food Workers’ Strike Raul Valdez’s section On Thursday September 4th 2014, thousands of fast food restaurant workers walked out of their post and joined a street protest demanding a wage of $15 per hour. Fast food workers in more than 100 cities in the US joined the protest hoping to disturb the fast food chains enough to get their executives’ attention. This protest was part of the movement that was organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). A previous strike was organized on May this year and it took place not only in the US but in at least 33 countries like The UK, Philippines, India, Japan, and Belgium among others. The protests were supposed to be peaceful, but there were some instances of protesters blocking streets. The police had to intervene and at least 430 people were arrested. Kendall Fells, the organizer director of Fast Food Forward organization that helped organize the protest said “There has to be civil disobedience because workers don’t see any other way to get $15 an hour and a union” Protesters were hoping that their absence from work would make these fast food restaurants lose revenue and create chaos forcing executives in these establishments to accept the protesters’ demands. A similar strike took place when the Market Basket workers abandoned their posts when the Market Basket Board of Directors decided to replace their CEO. Although the fast food protest was highly organized and the majority of workers joined, some workers...
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...Wage is relevant in the Production sector which is the supply sector. Wage affects the Supply curve. The individual producing, has to look at his bill in this case his wage bill. The supply curve’s relationship is between price of production and quantity produced (the quantity supplied). An ordinary curve should move your supply curve from left to right but in a market where there is Minimum wage, the supply curve remains parallel to the quantity supplied according to the graph. This is because due to the minimum wage the producer supplies less because he is producing less just because he cannot reduce his price. Therefore in this type of market QS cannot meet his demand because he would rather keep his price down, therefore no equilibrium, therefore black markets come to play and rationing. An example of this is in some African petroleum markets, the government imposes a false fixed price on gas therefore setting in black market and rationing of petroleum when it is rationed, there is scarcity and prices shoot up for the available product. With all said the supplier gains because he can set the price of his rationed product as he pleases and the consumer loses (they have to purchase at a very high price and deal with the scarcity especially if it’s an essential product). The alternative to achieving this same policy would be to take away or have minimal government intervention and leave it to DD and SS but then there will be consequences which we cannot predict. The elasticity’s...
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