Reasons for Minimum Wage Worker’s Tough Lives In 1938, federal minimum wage legislation became effective for the first time when the Fair Labor Standards Act passed (Sidey 573). After sixty-seven years, today, the minimum wage, which was originally set to make sure that working people could support themselves and their family, increased twenty times (Sidey 573). Nevertheless, the low-wage workers have never gotten rid of the hardship in their lives. Two main reasons cause the current situation. The increasing renting prices and the increasing rate of health care, which exceeds low-wage workers’ real income by quite a lot, make their lives tough all the time. Minimum wage, the smallest amount of money per hour that an employer may legally pay a worker, became a part of state law in Massachusetts in 1912 (Sidey 573). After 14 other states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico set similar laws in America, the first federal minimum wage legislation became valid. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 “firmly established the federal government as a regulator of wages in the United States by establishing a minimum hourly wage for all employees engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce” (Huckshorn 167). Based on 2004’s Current Population Survey of America, today two million workers earn at or below minimum wage out of 73.9 million American workers who are paid at hourly rates (Characteristics). In 1996, the minimum wage raised to $5.15 per hour. Some people argue that this federal legislation helped low-wage workers a lot. Nevertheless, low-wage people are still suffering from hardship because of the big gap between their incomes and expenditures. In 1998, the minimum-wage was “$2,500 below the poverty line for a three-person family” if a worker works 40 hours a week without vacations (Rothman). The minimum wage should be $6.24 to maintain the same average purchasing power in 1998 as “it averaged in the 1970s” (Rothman). Up until 2005, in California, nearly 16 percent of Californian low-paid workers live below the poverty line according to a study of State Industrial Welfare Commission of California (Garcoa). These figures and examples denied the argument that this federal legislation helped low-wage workers’ lives. Two main reasons cause the big gap between minimum-workers’ real income and basic living requirements, the persistent increasing of the rental price and health premiums. The first reason for hardship concerns the high rental prices in America
In order to sustain a vibrant economy, the government needs to help the poor with their resources. The poor are poor not because they don’t work, but because government has failed to provide wages that American families can survive on. Cost can be an issue but the cost to subsidize the workers with low-wage jobs are higher (Kukathus 49). Acknowledging ethical and reli...
Poverty and low wages have been a problem ever since money became the only thing that people began to care about. In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, she presents the question, “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” This question is what started her experiment of living like a low wage worker in America. Ehrenreich ends up going to Key West, Portland, and Minneapolis to see how low wage work was dealt with in different states. With this experiment she developed her main argument which was that people working at low wages can’t live life in comfort because of how little they make monthly and that the economic system is to blame.
For the past year I have watched my younger sister struggle to support herself and her now 11 month old baby. She makes more than minimum wage. She has struggled to the point where she was evicted and now lives with me. I have also experienced struggling on low pay. When I was 18 I was kicked out of my family’s house, and I was only making $8 an hour. There were days where I had to choose between paying rent and getting my electricity shut off, just because I couldn’t work enough hours to pay all of my bills. It can be very scary to only make minimum wage and have to support yourself. There are changes that need to be made so that every person can live properly with any job.
Should we have the minimum wage rise? Nowadays, many people argue that we should increase the minimum wage because we haven’t had an increase since 2009. People who are living on the minimum wage struggle a lot raising their families. (Webster) Minimum wage means the lowest daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. On the other hand living wage means the minimum amount that a worker must earn to afford his/her basic necessities, without public or private assistance
There are multiple causes of why a family or individual can fall into poverty, which includes but is not limited to, disability, unemployment, age, and recessions, as we have seen through the 2008 recession and the Great Depression. Throughout this paper, I will address poverty as a social problem and its causes. I will also focus on how children and family households headed by single mothers are affected by poverty, and how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families came about to help children and families in poverty. Before we can explain the causes of poverty, one must first define what poverty is. If you were to ask someone for their definition of poverty, you would get several different definitions.
Currently my weight, according to health standards, is unhealthy and qualifies as being obese. Obesity is defined as an individual having a high amount of extra body weight, which is not from muscle and bone, but rather excess fat . Being obese puts me at a higher risk for developing weight related health issues, such as high blood pressure, heart disease and some forms of cancer(“Assessing Your Weight”, 2015). The weight related risk increase, along with genetic risk factors for developing diabetes, encourages me to pursue a change in my current
What would be so bad about raising minimum wage? Before other states jump on the $15 minimum-wage bandwagon, they might want to look at what's happening in Massachusetts — one of two states with a $10-an-hour minimum wage. Massachusetts increased the minimum wage from $8 to $9 at the start of 2015 and to $10 on the first day of 2016. The state is now mired in its longest stretch of net job losses since the recession in both the retail and the leisure and hospitality sectors, Labor Department data show.
Also Ehrenreich makes it extremely clear that her work was not designed to make her “experience poverty. ”(6) After completing the assignment, given to her by an editor, she had planned to write an article about her experience. Her article is intended to reach the community that is financially well off and give them an idea of how minimum wage workers deal with everyday life. It also illustrated to the Economist the harsh reality in the ultra-competitive job environment and how someone in a low paying career cannot survive.
The gap in wealth between the rich and the poor continues to grow larger, as productivity increases but wages remain the same. There were changes in the tax structure that gave the wealthy tax breaks, such as only taxing for social security within the first $113,700 of income in a year. For CEOs this tax was paid off almost immediately. Free trade treaties broke barriers to trade and resulted in outsourcing and lower wages for workers. In “Job on the Line” by William Adler, a worker named Mollie James lost her job when the factory moved to Mexico. “The job in which Mollie James once took great pride, the job that both fostered and repaid her loyalty by enabling her to rise above humble beginnings and provide for her family – that job does not now pay Balbina Duque a wage sufficient to live on” (489). When Balbina started working she was only making 65 cents an hour. Another huge issue lies in the minimum wage. In 2007, the minimum wage was only 51% of the living wage in America. How can a person live 51% of a life? Especially when cuts were being made in anti-poverty and welfare programs that were intended to get people on their feet. Now, it seems that the system keeps people down, as they try to earn more but their benefits are taken away faster than they can earn. Even when workers tried to get together to help themselves they were thrown
The judges, judiciary power, ought to interpret the law by providing the justice and peace to the country. An ambiguity existed in this part, because as we already know, the RP is unchecked and absolute. Sir Edward Coke, believe that the King hath no prerogative, but that which the law of the land allows him. Lord Delvin has different perspective, and said that the court will not review the proper exercise of discretionary power but they will intervene to correct excess or abuse. With the Devlin’s view we can clearly understand that the RP can help the executive power to protect the separation of powers. Lord Scarman assumed that the exercise of the power is subject to review with principles of the review of exercise of statutory power. It is worthwhile to consider that Lord Roskill successfully support a view which said that the orthodox view was at that time that the remedy for abuse of the prerogative lay in the political and not in the judicial field. While the RP is still exist, and also sets the directions of our lives, has to be reviewed. The key power of our unwritten constitution is to protect separation of powers, as the other powers acts with check and balances, the prerogative power should be
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.
It is important to understand the classic debate of Yates v. Hamilton in order to comprehend the context of judicial review in American democracy. Robert Yates was an anti-federalist and judge of the New York Supreme Court who advocated that judicial review was not consistent with the spirit of democratic government. He refused to allow the judicial branch the last word over constitutional interpretation. In his paper, Brutus #11, he contended that the power of the judicial branch would be superior to that of the legislature is the Supreme Court acted as final arbiter of the constitution’s meaning, thus “this power in the judicial, will enable them to mould the government, into almost any shape they please. — The manner in which this may be effected we will hereafter examine” (Yates). Yates, above all, believed that the constitution is the mediator between the public and their elected officials. On the other hand, federalist Alexander Hamilton defended the legitimacy of judicial review as the “least dangerous branch” of government. He explained the legitimate status of the courts through the system of checks and balances. Ham...
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?
The House of Lords decision in the Daly underpinned one of Lord Bingham’s eight sub rules which refers to the law providing adequate protection for fundamental human rights. It was held the instruction issued by the Secretary of State violated prisoners right to a legal adviser under the seal of legal professional privilege. By holding the Secretary of State had no right to issue such an instruction, the House of Lords gave due regard to the Lord Bingham’s rule of law. A similar notion was present, in Wheeler where it said the club had a basic “constitutional right … to freedom of the person and freedom of speech” which had been interfered with by the council’s decision to ban use of the
Social issues are problems in the society today that are described as wrong, widespread and changeable. A category of conditions that people believe need to be changed. Poverty is a serious social issue in the society today. According to Peilin (2012), poverty brings hardships to families and individuals as well as political thereby negatively affecting the social stability and social development and posing a severe threat to human security (p. 243). This paper focuses on poverty as a social issue in today’s society. First, it gives a succinct introduction of the social issue, and then describes how it fits into the field of sociology. It also evaluates the sociological theories and terminology that relate to the social issue. The section that follows evaluates what is known and unknown about the particular social issue. This is followed by a discussion regarding the value of sociological research into the issue determining the available or possible practical implications of the sociological inquiry. The information presented here is strongly supported by the concepts and theories derived from reliable sources.