of July 24, 2009, the minimum wage in America is $7.25 an hour. A study by the National Coalition for the Homeless revealed that “a minimum wage worker would have to work 83 hours per week” to afford the rent of an average priced two-bedroom apartment and still be able to afford food, clothing, healthcare and other necessities (Molloy). It has not always been this way. In 1967 the minimum wage was the equivalent of $10.04 today and “a person working full-time at minimum wage earned enough to raise
with it a national minimum wage. Echoes of that speech are still heard today. Senator Edward Kennedy (1989: S14707), in his criticism of the most recent increases in the minimum wage, declared: 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
The idea of having a federal minimum wage is a good one. The idea is to protect low and unskilled workers from discrimination and allow all workers to earn a living wage. The recent debate on the floor, though, is whether or not to raise the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour up to $10.10 per hour. President Barack Obama made this proposal during his annual State of the Union Address on January 28, and following this there were many hot debates about it. The debates focused not only on
Minimum wage should be increased because millions of Americans will be saved from a life of poverty. With inflation increasing every year, it is necessary to raise the minimum wage to keep up the living cost. Adams, Mark. "Raising the Minimum Wage Hurts the Poor." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 11 Mar. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. Mark Adams argues that raising minimum wage would hurt the poor rather than helping them. He points out that raising minimum wage will make it hard for them to find a
Minimum Wage Raise in Seattle After the protest in New York City, the issue of raising the minimum wage has come up once again. Seattle is spearheading this cause with a proposal of raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. This will help minimum wage workers a great deal by increasing their income. However, there are concern that this move could hurt certain businesses, which can lead to higher unemployment and contraction of the economy. The ethical issue surfaced as this will benefit some at
the minimum wage were drastically increased? Could you afford it? What impact would it have on those making more than minimum wage? The questions have been debated for sometime, but recently the debate has intensified because President Obama made a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9 from its current status of $7.25. Bustamante’s article “$9 minimum wage sounds good but it would be bad public policy” focuses on the negative affects implementing a policy to raise the price floor on minimum wage
The minimum wage debate has recently made a large comeback in United States politics. Contemporary studies show over 3.8 million Americans are paid at or below minimum wage (Dickinson 33). Many have looked skeptically back on past wage systems and have questioned wage’s relationship to current market inflation. In response to this inquiry, a large majority of the general population, relatively unrelated to their degree of income, support legislation to increase the minimum. However, the issue has
theory goes hand in hand with the minimum wage issue. Declining wages and growing inequality are the world’s central economic challenges. In modern day America, where the cost of living is constantly on a gradual increase, the question arises: Should the minimum wage be increased? After doing some research, reading works by authors such as: Jordan Weissmann, Jared Bernstein, and Brad Plumer. I have come to the conclusion that, although increasing the minimum wage will have various effects on diverse
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
Minimum wage is a difficult number to decide on because it affects different income earning citizens in different ways. According to Principles of Microeconomics, by N. Gregory Mankiw, minimum wage is a law that establishes the lowest price for labor that and employer may pay (Mankiw 6-1b). Currently, the minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. For many years politicians and citizens have argued on what should be the minimum wage that would benefit the economy and society in general