A while ago I was told by my parents that I got a call from (my now boss), Donald Makepeace, asking if I was still interested in a job. We played phone tag for the longest tag, but finally I was hired at the local Dairy Queen. My parents originally said that I was supposed to contribute some money to help pay for insurance, gas ,and ect. After, seeing how much money I brought back week after week, they ignored that request. The truth of the matter is, it’s hard to live on a minimum wage job. In fact, many individuals must have at least two jobs to keep the bills meet. So, President Obama is trying to get Congress to pass an increase in the minimum wage. However, Congress refuses to raise the minimum wage. I agree with Congress, that we should not raise the minimum wage because these jobs are mainly for high school students and more people wouldn’t be able to hire people. Facts, do support the fact minimum wage should stay where they’re at because high school students are the largest portion of minimum wage. In fact, Drew Desilver states that 50.6% of the current minimum wage job employees are between 16-24 years old (par. 7). Knowing that the majority of these workers are teenagers that probably won’t keep these jobs forever makes me want to keep it as it is. Anthony Davis and James R. Harrigan from US News describes the situation being that a small portion of workers earns the minimum wage . They continue to say that the majority of these people lacks education (par. 4). So if we raised the minimum wage it would encourage many people to not further their education. Because of a minimum wage increase employers would struggle to keep their businesses open and hire people. With an increase in wages for employees emp... ... middle of paper ... ...14. Desilver, Drew. "5 Facts about the Minimum Wage." Pew Research Center RSS. N.p., 47 Dec. 2013. Web. 17 May 2014. Harrigan, James R., and Antony Davies. "Raising the Minimum Wage Is No Free Lunch." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 18 May 2014. Pyke, Alan. "The Minimum Wage: Myths & Facts." Media Matters for America. N.p., 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 18 May 2014. Staff, NPR. "Raising Minimum Wage: A Help Or Harm?" NPR. NPR, 8 July 2012. Web. 20 May 2014. "Study: 38 Percent of Private Employers Will Cut Workers If Minimum Wage Is Raised." Fox News. FOX News Network, 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 18 May 2014. United States of America. National Employment Law Project. National Employment Law Project. N.p., Jan. 2011. Web. 18 May 2014. Welsh, Teresa. "Should Fast Food Workers Strike for Higher Wages?" US News. U.S.News & World Report, 29 Aug. 2013. Web. 18 May 2014.
Bennett-Alexander, Dawn D. & Hartman, Laura P. (2001). Employment Law for Business (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing. Downloaded February 4, 2008 from the data base of http://www.eeoc.gov
Cox, A., Bok, D. C., Gorman, R. A., & Finkin, M. W. (2011). Labor law cases and materials. (5th ed.). New York, NY: Thompson Reuters/Foundation Press.
Minimum wage is a topic that has been popping up since the 1980s. From whether we should lower it, or even raise it, but now in the 2000s minimum wage has been the center of attention more than ever. There are two sides to this topic of minimum wage; whether it creates more jobs or does not create jobs. Those who argue that raising minimum wage will create more jobs will have a rebuttal which is that it does not only cause the loss of jobs but that it would make things much worse and vice versa for those arguing raising minimum wage will cause loss of jobs. There will be two authors representing opposite views, Nicholas Johnson supporting minimum wage will not cost jobs with his article “ Evidence Shows Raising Minimum Wage Hasn’t Cost Jobs”
...the national minimum wage have not been followed by increased employment. Looking even closer, Congress raised the minimum wage in 2009 by just over ten percent. This was followed by the loss of over 600,000 jobs for people age sixteen thru nineteen. The rates of low employment for this age group remain extremely low. Similar statistics were recorded for all age groups as relatively unskilled workers of all age groups receive the minimum wage. An argument in favor of minimum wage is that it is a stimulus that introduces new income and spending into the market. But was there more income to spend in 2009 when nearly 600,000 jobs were lost? Common sense says that every dollar a minimum wage worker receives must have come out of somebody else’s pocket, either small business owners or their customers. The money for a higher minimum wage does not come from thin air.
Many people against raising the minimum wage create arguments such as, “it will cause inflation”, or, “ it will result in job loss.” Not only are these arguments terribly untrue, they also cause a sense of panic towards the majority working-class. Since 1938, the federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times. For more than 75 years, real GDP per capita has consistently increased, even when the wage has been
Gitterman, Daniel P. “Remaking A Bargain: The Political Logic Of The Minimum Wage In The United States.” Poverty And Public Policy 5.1 (2013): 3-36. EconLit. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
A federal minimum wage was first set in 1938. The first minimum wage was just 25 cents an hour in 1938. Can you imagine surviving off of 25 cents an hour? Now just over 70 years later the federal minimum wage is now 7.25. The question at hand is the federal minimum wage enough to meet the minimum requirement for a good, happy and healthy life? Some states and cities say no. While a select few states and cities have mirrored the federal minimum wage of 7.25, some states have placed their state or city/county minimum wage marginally higher than the federal minimum wage. So why would some states prefer to have a higher level than required by the federal minimum wage when some state have decided to match or even go below the federal minimum wage level. The answer to this question lies within each state city and county and how they perceive the cost of living in the presiding area. Minimum wage needs a makeover in America despite some of the negative effects that may come along with it. This paper will explore the reasons behind federal and state minimum wages and why some of them differ among states counties and cities across America.
Traub, Amy, and Catherine Ruetschlin. "Ten Reasons Why Fast Food Workers Deserve A Raise | Common Dreams." Common Dreams. Common Dreams, 29 Aug. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
The minimum wage must be raised because the cost of living has gone up considerably. Education is essential if one wishes to work, and the cost of education has increased drastically in the past twenty years. Companies should be requied to pay workers what they deserve, and that is more than minimum wage is now. With our new technology and the technology in the future work is harder and more complicated. A minimum wage increase would raise the wages of many workers and increase benefits to those disadvantaged workers.
Currently, in the United States, the federal minimum wage has been $7.25 for the past six years; however, in 1938 when it first became a law, it was only $0.25. In the United States the federal minimum wage has been raised 22 times since 1938 by a significant amount due to changes in the economy. Minimum wage was created to help America in poverty and consumer power purchasing, but studies have shown that minimum wage increases do not reduce poverty. By increasing the minimum wage, it “will lift some families out of poverty, while other low-skilled workers may lose their jobs, which reduces their income and drops their families into poverty” (Wilson 4). When increasing minimum wage low-skilled, workers living in poor families,
Linda Gorman. "Minimum Wages." The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. 2008. Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved April 24, 2014 from the World Wide Web: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MinimumWages.html
"Bill Gates: Raising Minimum Wage Can Destroy Jobs." The Foundry Conservative Policy News from The Heritage Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
On the 1st of April 1999, the National Minimum Wage (NMW) was introduced in the UK at a rate of £3.60 per hour for workers aged 21 and older, and at a rate of £3.00 for workers aged 18-21. Since then, it has grown steadily to reach a rate of £6.31 per hour today. The NMW is “the minimum pay per hour that almost all workers are entitled to by law” (www.gov.uk). In 1999, 1.9 million people were paid less than £3.60, sometimes even below the Living Wage due to the dismantling of unions by the Thatcher government. The idea of a minimum wage then came up, supported by the Labour Party, in order to reduce the increasing poverty and to prevent low wages workers from being exploited by their employers. The Conservative Party, supported by employers, was strongly opposed to this project, arguing that a minimum wage will damage the economy and create poverty due to higher unemployment levels. So, how does the NMW really affect poverty and employment in the UK?
John W. Budd & Devasheesh Bhave (2006). Sage Handbook of Industrial and Employment Relations. Industrial Relations Center, University of Minnesota. Chapter 5.
Bernstein, Jared. “Would Raising the Minimum Wage Harm the Economy?” The CQ Researcher 16 Dec. 2005:1069.