Minimum Wage Case Study

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Recommended: Effects of increasing the minimum wage

With the current minimum wages throughout the states, employees are unable to provide safe and comfortable housing for their families. An example of this would be in the state of California. As of January 2, 2018, the minimum wage for employees in California was $10.50 an hour (Division of Labor). These rates equally correlate with the increasing average price of housing in California. Today, the average home in California is priced at nearly two and a half times more than the average national home price of $180,000 (Taylor 3). There is no feasible way for employees to afford safe and comfortable living conditions with the income that they are generating from the current minimum wage. With people being unable to afford such high housing costs,

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  • The Minimum Wage Must Be Raised

    2107 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

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  • Nickel And Dimed By Barbara Ehrenreich

    1215 Words  | 3 Pages

    The current minimum wage right now in California is $9.00 per hour. The question is, will this be enough for people to pay off their rent and still able to not keep their fridge empty. In the book, "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich talks about working as a low wage worker. Barbara describes the environment of the jobs that she had done in a detailed manner. She also explained how most of her coworkers lived with more than one person in order to pay rent. One of her job was working in a nursing home which she got a really low pay to take care of elderly people. In addition to that job, she had another job in order to pay off her rent. Therefore, according to the book an individual may need more than one job or live in a house with more

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  • Lew Prince's The American Dream Needs A Fair Minimum Wage?

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

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  • Minimum Wage

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

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  • Minimum Wage And The Wage

    2449 Words  | 5 Pages

    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 ...

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  • The Minimum Wage For California Workers

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    On April 4, 2016, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that would significantly raise the minimum wage for California workers. By 2022, California 's workers will receive a minimum wage of $15 per hour (Kurzweil, Anthony, Sara Welch, and Kareen Wynter). Brown signed this bill because employees cannot live above the poverty line if their minimum wage is not proportional to the cost of living (Scheiber, Noam, and Ian Lovett). The purpose of the minimum wage is to ensure that workers can provide essential amenities for themselves and their families. Many economists have been in a debate about this topic with mixed feelings, whether increasing the minimum wage would be a reasonable legislation or not. For most average American workers, at first, the idea of raising their salaries might make them feel thrilled and optimistic. However, increasing the minimum wage will have its pros and cons effect on the economy. Despite numerous of arguments from both sides, a compromise can be met regarding minimum wage.

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  • Minimum Wage: Impact on American Poverty

    1282 Words  | 3 Pages

    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,

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  • Minimum Wage Is Not A Living Wage Essay

    888 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The rich get richer while the poor get poorer." This quote was originally stated in William Henry Harrison's 1840 speech but sadly enough can still be used today to describe our economic downfall and crisis. With California currently holding a minimum wage at $10 many argue that this just isn’t cutting it anymore. One of the only ways to live prosperously on this income is to work, relentlessly, day in and day out. With many people living day-to-day and paycheck- to-paycheck, it is safe to say that the place minimum wage is right now is not working for most of the nation. With our developing economy, standards of living, unemployment rate, and debatable employee morale, it just seems right to increase the minimum wage.

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  • The Politics of Minimum Wage

    5061 Words  | 11 Pages

    The federally mandated minimum wage has been a divisive political issue in American politics since it first came into effect in 1938 under the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR advocated for the minimum wage with the argument that “all but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of manpower, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor, and the exploitation of unorganized labor” (Greene 2013). This idea led to the passage of the first minimum wage law in American history, twenty five cents an hour (Greene 2013). Prior to the passage of this law, several state minimum wage laws had been struck down as an unconstitutional prohibition of workers’ rights to set the price for their own labor. However, in 1941, the Supreme Court case U.S v Darby Lumber Co upheld the federal minimum wage, overturning the precedent it had set for state level minimum wages. The Court dismissed the argument that Darby Lumber did not engage in interstate commerce based on the commerce clause and stated that Congress had the constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce, along with intrastate commerce that directly affected interstate commerce (U.S v Darby Lumber Co.1941). Justice Stone, writing for the majority stated that Congress

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  • Homelessness In America

    770 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since the mid-1970s, affordable housing has become increasingly difficult to find. This is because Americans are being asked to contribute more and more or their paychecks to their rent and when they become homeless it is difficult to get themselves back into affordable housing. It has been reported that “A full-time worker earning minimum wage cannot afford a one-bedroom unit priced at the Fair Market Rent anywhere in the United States. Nationally a full-time worker must earn $18.32 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent.”(National low-income Housing Coalation 2010) Today, our federal minimum wages contributes to our increasing homeless population, while even if you work fulltime making $7.25 isnt even enough to get you off the street. In 1970 there was a...

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  • Minimum Wage

    1201 Words  | 3 Pages

    The hard workers of the great state of California deserve a livable wage, but they won’t be receiving their living wage until 2016. Governor brown signed into law bill AB10 which will raise the minimum wage in California to $9.00 per hour beginning July 1, 2014, and then to $10.00 per hour beginning January 1,2016. The minimum-wage was adopted in California as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 during the Great Depression. Ever since then the minimum-wage has slowly been growing. According to The California department of industrial relations the California minimum wage has been steadily increasing since 1918. It has gone from .21 cents to 10 dollars an hour. Increasing the minimum-wage does many things; it stimulates the economy, allows people to live in better conditions, and helps level out the problem of income inequality. The minimum wage also helps in indirect ways. The raising of minimum wage achieves a domino effect, it allows for new job growth since people have more wants, it also helps to reduce crime, people that are able to pay their bills with what they have and don’t need to go and steal just to feed their families. It is commonsensical that the minimum wage be a living wage not a subpar amount that causes people to work double the amount just to make ends meet.

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  • Raising Minimum Wage Essay

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    Contrary to popular belief, minimum wage earners are hard working Americans age 20 and over, and these adults are large contributors to their households. These adults are the people who work for our everyday low wage companies that help our economy run such as, food prep, leisure and hospitality. Low wage earners are spending less because they have such a burden on costs. A recent survey states, three out of five small businesses with employees support a minimum wage increase. Raising the minimum wage will put more money into the hands of low wage workers, who will in turn spend the money on housing, food and other necessities. When people make more money, the demand for goods and services go up, and they ultimately invest back into our nation’s economy, helping to create more jobs and opportunities. A thriving workplace gives back to the economy in more ways than one (DOL

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  • The Minimum Wage Should Be Increased

    1846 Words  | 4 Pages

    A person working at minimum wage will only make about $10,700 a year. When rent, groceries, bills and gas are all added up, it appears to be a nearly impossible task to keep a family afloat. But working 40 hours a week at $5.15 an hour, one makes less than $206 a week after taxes. Making $206/week, one brings home about $824/month. Adding 17 gallons of gas at $2.20 a gallon in a car; the cost ends up to be about $38 a week, $152/month. The gas and electricity bill about $120, $50 for cable, $147 for property taxes, $45 for the telephone bill, $25 for water, and $42 for house insurance. All this totals about $580 (Abrams, H). Making it difficult to afford cable, and make the smallest payment possible on all the bills causing one to slip into debt. This is reality for many of the people in the United States. At the current minimum wage level, a full time, year round minimum wage worker in 2005 will earn $5,378 less than the $16,090 needed to lift a family of three out of poverty (Minimum).

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  • Argumentative Essay On Minimum Wage

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

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  • Increase Minimum Wage Essay

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    About “75.3 million people ages sixteen and over worked for hourly wages in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics” (“Minimum Wage”). Meaning almost a quarter of the workforce in this nation are working a minimum wage job. Numerous people believe that these workers are not able to make ends meet, and increasing the minimum wage will help these individuals substantially. Even though people believe that increasing the minimum wage will benefit the society, they tend to overlook the drawbacks of increasing the minimum wage, and how it will prove to be detrimental to the society. People believe that increasing the minimum wage will reduce poverty and improve the living standards of the individuals.

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