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Working Poor

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Submitted By yurgingergirl
Words 2032
Pages 9
Minimum Wage and the Working Poor
HD 403 Poverty
Spring 2012

Introduction
It is believed one way to help the working poor is to increase the minimum wage to elevate their yearly income. But surveys and studies have shown that raising the minimum wage has done very little to help poverty rate. What it has done is eliminate jobs that the working poor filled and increased inflation. It seems to be an ineffective way to help the poor, a combination of other anti-poverty tools together would produce better results.

Issue Each president has wanted to help those in poverty and the working poor in America. President Clinton increased the federal minimum wage to bring up the wages of the working poor. Is that the answer? What will happen when the federal minimum wage is brought up to $9.50 an hour? This article is looking into possibilities of what may happen with poverty and the working poor if the minimum wage were increased. The working poor are people in the workforce but wages still fall below the poverty level. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 has increased the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour (Rep. Miller, 2007). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports in 2011, there were 73.9 million American workers age 16 and older were paid hourly wage. But only 1.7 million workers made minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and 2.2 million had wages below the minimum (USDL, 3/2012). The working poor looked like a person who had not graduated high school or had no GED, never been married and aged 16 to 19 years old and 20 to 24 years old (USDL, 2012). Debra Watson (1999) states the working poor is a single white woman who is between 30 and 49 years old and works full time (40 hrs. a week) and she has maintained this job for about a year and supports a child under the age of 18. The working poor accounted for 7.2% of those who worked in the

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