Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Economic effects of raising the minimum wage
Economic benefits of raising the minimum wage
Economic benefits of raising the minimum wage
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Economic effects of raising the minimum wage
If you or your family were to go out into the world today and find an easy paying job you would be expecting minimum wage. Minimum wage has been defined by as the lowest wage, determined by law or contract that an employer may pay an employee for a specified job. For many this is not enough I know first had that it will help but it is not enough. For most of my college career my mother was the only one making more than minimum wage and it was barely enough.
Recently this subject has been in the news more than ever. Ten states are looking to raise the minimum wage price ceiling in their state to allow their workers to make more money. As stated before this is only the state’s minimum wage not the federal. The last time the federal minimum wage was increased back in July of 2009 it was raised to $7.25 an hour. However while raising the minimum wage may help it is only helping those who have jobs. Bob Pollin of Massachusetts said to marketplace.org “It’s not a cure-all to poverty, In fact, the biggest source of low-income poverty is that people don’t have jobs at all.”
If the biggest source to low income is fewer jobs why not provide small business owners, who have an economically stable business, the opportunity to expand their business and branch out. This is would be more like the old saying you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it. By creating more jobs you are in turn granting the lower and middle class the chance to bring in money that they currently do not have. The Boston herald which describes a business’ input on the subject
As business executives and owners, we are sensitive to every factor that influences our ability to grow our businesses. No matter what some may claim, it’s horrifically short...
... middle of paper ...
...businesses will have to look for ways to compensate for the pay increase which if none can be found the only solution as mentioned on foxnews.com is eliminating jobs.
In conclusion if we can find a way to correct minimum wage to match the cost of inflation we could slowly solve the employment and poverty level in our country. But until then we must first focus on what we know for business is the law of diminishing marginal return and for the people it’s how to survive on as little as possible.
Works Cited
"Businesses Back Min-wage Hike." Boston Herald. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2013.
"Businesses Brace for 'serious Cuts' as City Enacts Highest-in-nation $15 Minimum Wage." Fox News. FOX News Network, n.d. Web. 30 Dec. 2013.
"Ten States Raise Minimum Wages in 2013, but Impact on Low-skilled and Teen Workers Is Unknown." The Daily Caller. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2013.
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.
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 of the $4.25 it will reach on April 1, 1991. That is a measure of how far we have failed the test of fairness to the working poor.” (Burkhauser 1)
Well, raising the minimum wage has both the pros and cons. Still, the fact that increasing the minimum wage nationwide would increase millions of workers’ earnings is deniable. I suppose that’s why some people advocate raising the minimum wage will grow the economy for everyone. In 2014, the president of the United States, Obama, called on the current Congress to raise the national minimum wage, which proves that Obama actually supports raising the minimum wage. ‘February 2014 Congressional Budget Office Report The Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income is the latest attempt to do so, in this response to Members of Congress with respect to an increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour.’
In summary, there is one thing that people need to survive in today’s society: money. Making more legal money means that people are less likely to turn to crime for survival, more people are spending more money, and people are living the way they deserve to. Minimum wage needs to be raised to meet the people’s needs.
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, Labor Department data show. Minimum wage is the assured lowest amount of pay per hour that an employee can receive and it’s purpose is to make certain that employers are paying their workers fairly. The first minimum wage was created by Congress in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act; it was twenty-five cents an hour. Since then, it has varied over the years, the highest being in 1968, but today it stands at $7.25 (Sherk). At the moment, Congress is contemplating the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which would, over two years, raise the minimum wage to $10.10 (GovTrack). However, raising the minimum wage is a bad idea because a majority of minimum wage jobs belong to teenagers who will not stay in the job very long and do not need to support a family, raising minimum wage will lessen the availability of jobs for the poor, and it is pointless since many of the impoverished that the raising of the minimum wage is targeted to help, will not be able to benefit.
Many people against raising the minimum wage create arguments such as, “it will cause inflation”, or, “ it will result in job loss.” Not only are these arguments terribly untrue, they also cause a sense of panic towards the majority working-class. Since 1938, the federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times. For more than 75 years, real GDP per capita has consistently increased, even when the wage has been
"When we talk about the kind of folks whose lives will be made better by raising the minimum wage, we're not talking about a couple teenagers earning extra spending money to supplement their allowance. We're talking about providers and breadwinners. Working Americans with bills to pay and mouths to feed."
Davidson, Paul. "13 States Raising Pay for Minimum-wage Workers." USA Today. Gannett, 30 Dec. 2013. Web. 07 May 2014.
Over the years the cost of living has been on the rise. Therefore, it is only right for minimum wage to increase as the cost of living increases. Many states and even some individual cities have taken the first steps toward raising the minimum wage. States like Washington and cities like San Francisco have already raised their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage. This is a very good start as it is becoming harder and harder for Americans to start and take care of their families. We need more states and cities to follow their lead some more Americans can feel more financially stable. This will make a better America for us all.
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 ...
Because the cost of living has sky rocketed, it has become almost impossible to raise a family on a minimum wage job. A person living on his or her own cannot survive on minimum wage job either. Their living expense would just be too much. The earnings of minimum wage workers are crucial to their families well being. Evidence from 2013 and 2014 minimum wage increase shows that an average minimum wage worker brings home more than half of his or her family's weekly earnings. In 2013 one million single mothers with children under 18 would have benefited from a minimum wage increase to $10.
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,
According to Gabrielle Karol’s article, “How Raising the Minimum Wage Would Help the Economy”, increasing the minimum wage would cause a decrease in poverty and debt for many families. An individual who works for minimum wage roughly earns 15, 080 dollars a year. Karol insists 15,080 dollars a year barley allows individuals to provide food and shelter for their families. Karol states, “A common definition states that the living wage should be high enough that no more than 30 % of take-home pay needs to be spent on housing.” With an increase in minimum wage, families who currently have one or more members earning minimum wage would be able to afford a car, afford medical insurance, pay utilities, and provide meals for their families; raising the minimum wage would allow families to afford the essentials in life (Karol). Not only would families be able to sustain a standard living, they would be able to pay off old bills and pay off the debt they have...
Today the federal minimum wage is $5.15, but should be about $8.50 if Congress had adjusted it for inflation over the past 35 years. While $5.15 may not seen that bad, when factoring in such variables as sky rocketing gas prices, budgets can get pretty tight. David Shepard, a sophomore at Wayne State University, worked at a Meijer Retail and Grocery Superstore for over two years while in high school. At the time Shepard lived with his parents and didn’t have to worry about paying rent or buying groceries, all that he had to pay for was filling up his gas tank and paying for his car insurance. Shepard recalled, “It was all I could do to pay for the basics like gas and bill’s, I barely had any money to have fun on the weekends”. This is only an example of a high school student that can nearly slip by on minimum wage with only a few expenses. There are 1.8 million people in America with children under the age of 18 that would benefit from an increase in minimum wage (Minimum).
In the 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, and soon after signed an Executive Order to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 for the individuals working on new federal service contracts. An increase in the minimum wage has been a topic of discussion for many years now, and it looks like this year will finally see the first increase of minimum wage in 10 years. Not everyone agrees that there should be an increase, but many states have already raised their minimum wage rates because of the federal government’s inaction. Iowa raised the state’s wage, and it will rise again in 2016. Clearly there are benefits to a higher minimum wage; the current minimum wage in the United States should be raised because it helps the economy by increasing employment, and it is now at the lowest value it has been in more than 50 years, causing hardship for earners of minimum wage.