In order to attain an adequate life in an ideal society, a person must obtain a job. Jobs are like a bag of mixed candy- they come in a variety of sizes and value. Like anyone, people like to pick the best candy first, but what happens when all the good candy is taken? People are stuck with the “bad” candy. In this case, people like to pick the best jobs, but, like the candy bag, what happens when all the good jobs are taken? Similarly, people are left with “bad” jobs that pay a meager salary. Minimum wage is a nightmare to anyone that depends on the payment to make a living; furthermore, minimum wage life requires a person to take more than one job in order to make a good living, and it requires hard work paid with salaries that cannot compensate the backaches, depression, and poverty put into it. Minimum wage needs to be raised to a more accommodating salary payment in order to ensure a suitable life. Work can cause a sense of fruition, mirth, and a detachment from the world; however, work can also cause acrimony. Thomas Carlyle said, “Labour is life” (210). In agreement to his statement, life does revolve around work. Without work, there is no success in life; furthermore, those who work hard tend to be auspicious in their lives. Take for example Bill Gates. He worked hard and where is he in life now? He is swimming in riches. The world tells you that by working hard you will always prosper in life. We must be naïve if we are to believe that will happen very often. As much as minimum wage sounds like a cacophony to our ears, it does exist. People that are going through minimum wage jobs need to have more than one job in order to pay for housing, food, and necessities. We all know that “If you can’t put up ... ... middle of paper ... ... of money because of the economy, it should not punish its workers by not rewarding them extra money due to overtime they took, by making their jobs more rigorous than average jobs, or by making them work irregular hours. I agree with Booker T. Washington’s statement, “The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar…” (193). Why is earning a dollar worth infinitely more than spending it? No matter how inadequately a job pays their employees, the employees worked hard for that trifling amount of money, and it hurts them to spend their hard-earned cash. Like Ms. Ehrenreich, I too agree that “you don’t need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low…” (199). Without America increasing minimum wage, minimum wage workers will continue to be handicapped in paving a way to a better life.
Poverty continues to grow in America. The average minimum wage in the United States is $7.35 an hour- far too low in today’s society. Key expenses, for example, gas and housing prices, have gone up significantly since the minimum wage was last changed in 2007 (Wagner 52). The laws creating the minimum wage were intended to improve the standard of living and decrease poverty. Raising minimum wage is a vital step in decreasing poverty and giving every family the opportunity to survive and succeed. Millions of hard-working Americans are below the poverty line and need an increase in pay. Minimum wage must be raised because it will diminish poverty and assist the working class to support their families.
Barbara Ehrenreich's intent in the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America exhibited how minimum wage isn't enough for Americans to get by on and that there's no hope for the lower class. Her main objective was achieved by living out the life of the "working poor". During the three cases studies she worked many jobs that are worked by many that are simply striving to live day to day. The jobs she had didn't generate sufficient income to avoid or help her rise out of poverty, in fact the six to seven dollar jobs made survival considerably difficult. Enitially, she believe the jobs didn't require any skill but while on her journey she started to realize they were stressful and drained a lot of energy. In addition to that she saw it was almost impossible to get out of the rut of low paying professions once you're in. Barbra Ehrenreich moved throughout three locations attempting to prove her argument. In those states she obtained a job as a waitress, hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Not only did she learn about the low wages but also the treatment that was shown to the workers.
The minimum wage was, as it should be, a living wage, for working men and women ... who are attempting to provide for their families, feed and clothe their children, heat their homes, [and] pay their mortgages. The cost-of-living inflation adjustment since 1981 would put the minimum wage at $4.79 today, instead of the $4.25 it will reach on April 1, 1991. That is a measure of how far we have failed the test of fairness to the working poor.” (Burkhauser 1)
Understanding the basic concept of minimum wage is important for every single individual. We all live in this world together, and it is obvious that there is an order. In order to continue our lives and afford our basic needs, we all need to work and gain wealth. As the old adage says ‘‘There ain’t such a thing as a free lunch. ’’
In summary, there is one thing that people need to survive in today’s society: money. Making more legal money means that people are less likely to turn to crime for survival, more people are spending more money, and people are living the way they deserve to. Minimum wage needs to be raised to meet the people’s needs.
Imagine working under poor conditions for over 40 hours a week to afford basic human necessities only to remain nothing more than a cog in a corporal machine seen unworthy of livable wages. While this may seem unrealistic, it proves as reality for many lower class Americans. Minimum wage has seen a drastic decline in relation to the inflation of living costs, an issue addressed in Lew Prince’s, “The American Dream Needs a Fair Minimum Wage”. In the article, Prince, a business owner, states, “... in 1979, the minimum wage was $2.90 -- that would be $9.50, adjusted for inflation in 2014 dollars”. Even with this information, many americans above the poverty level line argue against an increase in wages. Although opinions often
It gives them a sense that they are being fairly compensated for their hard work. How can one expect another to be passionate about their occupation if they feel cheated or better yet be passionate about an economy that makes less of them? High salaries attract and motivate workers; enthusiastic and productive workers attract business; an increase in business leads to an increase in money for the economy. Therefore, by raising the minimum wage, a mutual satisfaction can be attained for both, workers and businesses. McClelland appealed to emotion and credibility more effectively than King by uniting his life experience into his text, using it to influence, and also providing full references of other’s experiences. This came to become a major convincing factor. This comes to say, although King’s argument was strong with the potential to be equally arguable, McClelland’s defense presented to be more
...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
If there is only one main source of income in the home and that person is only making minimum wage do you think it’s hard on that one person? I believe it is because just think about it, after all that hard work to get that one check you only made enough to pay all your bills. That money you just worked two weeks for is gone in the snap of an eye due to you making too little. "The fact is, almost two-thirds of minimum wage workers are adults, and four in ten are the sole bread winner of their family” (The Case for Raising the Minimum Wage). Most households rely on people that are making minimum wage and half the time those checks aren 't even enough. "The President 's proposal to increase the minimum wage would raise wages of more than 5.7 million working women. This includes more than 950,000 African-American women and 760,000 women of Hispanic origin” (The Case for Raising the Minimum Wage). By the president pushing towards making wages higher it will help all the single moms out there because there 's a one-fifth population in America of single moms. "In short, as people age they gain more skills and experience. The resulting higher productivity pushes their wages up” (Boudreaux/ Williams). If an employee has worked for a company for a long time they gain more experience over time and become better at the job. That 's one way people in poverty can take notes on and
The minimum wage today has a lot of issues; some people say it is not enough to live comfortably. Many agree that there needs to be an increase in minimum wages and by doing that it can help with our issues of poverty. Statistics show that a worker who is full time and earning minimum wage makes only $15,080 a year, which is under the federal poverty line for a family of two. (Gitis, 2013) The problem with that is $15,080 is not a sufficient amount that a person can live and grow on. “A family of two can consist of a mother and son or daughter, father and son or ...
Because the cost of living has sky rocketed, it has become almost impossible to raise a family on a minimum wage job. A person living on his or her own cannot survive on minimum wage job either. Their living expense would just be too much. The earnings of minimum wage workers are crucial to their families well being. Evidence from 2013 and 2014 minimum wage increase shows that an average minimum wage worker brings home more than half of his or her family's weekly earnings. In 2013 one million single mothers with children under 18 would have benefited from a minimum wage increase to $10.
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 $0.25. In the United States the federal minimum wage has been raised 22 times since 1938 by a significant amount due to changes in the economy. Minimum wage was created to help America in poverty and consumer power purchasing, but studies have shown that minimum wage increases do not reduce poverty. By increasing the minimum wage, it “will lift some families out of poverty, while other low-skilled workers may lose their jobs, which reduces their income and drops their families into poverty” (Wilson 4). When increasing minimum wage low-skilled, workers living in poor families,
The minimum wage being too low has been a public issue in America for generations. Basically, the debate includes two different opinions. Firstly, people who want to raise the minimum wage, and second, people who would rather is stay the same. The overwhelming majority of liberals are on the side that favors a raise. Additionally, a somewhat smaller proportion of conservatives favor the change as well, but for different reasons. The liberal opinion on raising the minimum wage is based on the idea that putting more money in the people’s pockets, will stimulate the economy, and decrease poverty. The problem that conservatives and liberals alike have with this, is that a few direct consequences are proven to apply when raising wages. Some proposed consequences include unemployment, inflation, and unfairness to higher educated people. Another main point is that raising the minimum wage is thought to helps small business by increasing worker satisfaction. This issue of minimum wage has become increasingly popular and important in current times, as president Obama has proposed the idea of raising the minimum wage of contract workers to 10.10$ per hour (about a 30% increase from the current 7.25$ per hour minimum wage). A large number of people consider this wage hike unnecessary due to the fact that today’s value of minimum is higher than it has ever been since the 80’s, and because the wage hike comes at too high of a cost. All things considered, the issue of raising minimum wage is not a battle of political parties and their agendas, its really a debate between everyone.
On an average, a worker must make $18.92 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment in most places in the United States today (Network, Jolie Lee/USA Today). Additionally, most of the workers have to balance multiple job schedules, travel, and struggle to keep up their life going. In fact, according to the most recent available numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, (2010 Census) in December of 2011 more than 7 million people were holding 2 or more jobs. “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin (1789). In brief, people work and dies to pay the circle of education, work and taxes. The increase in minimum wage will indeed decrease a huge stone of stress of working enormous hours. The federal poverty line guideline for a family of four is 24,250 according to 2015 census. (Obamacarefact). Accordingly, a person will have to work 50 hours a week in order to fulfill the guideline. Whereby, $15 an hour will perfectly meet 40 hours work law without overtime or working multiple