Persuasive Essay On Raising Minimum Wage

Ted Kennedy once said that no one who works a forty-hour week fifty-two weeks a year should live in poverty. One way to help ensure that a diligent worker never lives in poverty is with a sufficient minimum wage. With the current federally regulated minimum wage rate at $7.50 per hour, many American households are finding it hard to live outside of poverty. Because those who make minimum wage can barely pay bills, feed their children, and cloth themselves, the minimum wage should be raised so that they can afford these basic necessities easily.
When you raise minimum wage, you put money on the people’s hand that wants to spend it. The more money circulating creates new jobs because new businesses will open and they will need more employees. This would help boost the economy. A recent study by the Chicago Federal Reserve found that raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour would increase household spending by about $48 billion the following year, amounting to a .3 percent boost to GDP. And while opponents warn that a raise would hurt jobs, several studies have shown that it doesn’t have ...