Raising Minimum Wage Essay

There have been various conflicts for many years now in the United States economically. Wanting to raise the minimum wage to people who work in the fast-food industry that earn minimum wage is the biggest conflict. Majority of fast-food jobs pay minimum wage and are known to be for teen-aged workers not for an older person to make a living from. Although many people think raising the minimum wage would be a beneficial idea for the government so it can help the economy out. Minimum wage was never meant to be a feasible income; if minimum wage gets increased it would not benefit the poverty crisis in the United States. Although they are many people who agree with minimum wage there are disadvantages to increase the minimum wage. Raising minimum

People think that raising the minimum wage can benefit people who have low-income. Well, known business and corporations do not want the minimum wage to increase, as of a result they will have to pay their employees more and corporate will lose money from paying their employees more. According to “Issue: Minimum Wage” (Marcia Clemmitt) “Business owners in some labor-intensive, low-wage industries face serious uncertainties when minimum wages rise.” Also, companies would rather pay a teenager and not an adult because adults would complain about being paid minimum wage. Adults make a living off of what they earn teenagers have a job so they can have extra money when they go out. If minimum wage increases that means that everything will be more expensive since their income is rising. It will not help the poor either because since everything will be more expensive than they will not benefit from raising the minimum wage. Not only would be companies hire teenagers and not adults, but also would rather hire women than men. Pay gap also plays a role in raising the minimum wage, considering that women get paid less than

The reason it would increase unemployment rate is because the well-known industries and companies would rather hire higher-skill workers instead of people who have no experience. Which would mean people who do not have those skills would have a harder time getting a job. Furthermore, industries and companies become highly competitive against each other and which can also cause unemployment. According to the article “The Minimum Wage: Getting to $15” business will also get hurt by raising the minimum wage. The higher the minimum wage would make it almost impractical for American companies compete with other low-paying foreign countries. Another reason raising the minimum wage would decrease unemployment because according to High Pay, Fewer Jobs (Douglas Holtz Eakin and Ben Gitis) “The other two models point to even bigger losses, indicating that a $15 an hour minimum wage would lead to 432,200 and 588,000 fewer jobs under the “medium impact” and “high impact ”scenarios, respectively.” Additionally, according to COUNTERPRODUCTIVE: The Employment and Income Effects of Raising America’s Minimum Wage to $12 and to $15 per Hour (Douglas Holtz-Eakin &Ben Gitis) “$15-per-hour minimum wage could mean the loss of 6.6 million jobs” which in that case would not help the economy or the