Essay On Raising Minimum Wage

“The bottom line is that five million low-income Americans working full-time for minimum wage, deserve a raise.” (Jim Clyburn) Increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 will raise wages for 28 million workers by $35 billion in total according to Cap Action War Room. Minimum wage should be raised because it will profit a various amount of Americans in a way that it will pull many out of poverty and reduce inequality. The official poverty percentage is 14.5% which means 45.3 million Americans are in poverty. That is an increase of 8 million people since 2008. To add to that, another 97.3 million Americans live with low income or income that can barely sustain a family of four. (Current U.S. Poverty Statistics) “Raising the minimum wage to $12 by 2020 would directly or indirectly lift wages for 35.1 million workers- more than one in four in the U.S workers” (David Cooper.) With such a large amount of the workers having their minimum wage raised, this will help about 36.5 percent of America's single mothers, by raising their pay.

“If low-income workers earned more money, their dependence and eligibility for government benefits would decrease… raising the minimum wage to $10.10 (by 6 percent) would reduce spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $4.6 billion, (6 percent),” (procon.com.) To add on to that, another reason that increasing the minimum wage would benefit the people of the United States is that it is said to help your well-being and health. “Study by Rajiv Bhatia MD, found that raising the California minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2017 would ‘significantly benefit the health and well-being of the lives of Americans,” (procon.) This just explains some out of the many other helpful reasons that minimum wage would aid many