As of February 2014, there are approximately 155 million civilians in the United States work force [1]. Even with a minimum wage established by the federal government, working class civilians that work under the federal minimum wage of $7.25 are struggling with day to day life, including mortgage payments, food payments, and children. President Barack Obama addressed the many individuals and their families working full time under the federal minimum wage in the poverty level during his annual 2014 State of the Union Speech. President Obama made a proposition during the speech to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10, a $2.85 increase from the current federal minimum wage of $7.25.
An increase to $10.10 would be the second-largest one-year change in minimum wage. The amount would fall second to the 1950 wage increase from $0.40 to $0.75. It is also one of the largest minimum wages yet, with the largest being 1968's $1.60 per hour, equivalent to about $10.71 now [8]. President Obama has increased the federal contractor minimum wage to $10.10, as an antecedent to a hopeful minimum wage increase that would expand the $10.10 wages to American civilian workers. The amount would be increased to the amount of $10.10 gradually over the years until 2016 [2]. Should the US increase the federal minimum wage to the amount of $10.10 in all states?
“Nobody who works full time should be raising a family in poverty,” President Obama states. Many other people agree that any American working full time should not live below the poverty line. A minimum wage increase would decrease the national poverty levels substantially, with roughly 900,000 people lifted out of poverty. If 900,000 people are lifted out of poverty, it would decrease the to...
... middle of paper ...
...eceive a raise.
Works Cited
[1] http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/opinion/the-clear-benefits-of-a-higher-wage.html?hpw&rref=opinion&_r=0
[3] http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/14/smallbusiness/minimum-wage-hike/
[4] http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1993
[5] http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/sotu_minimum_wage.pdf
[6] http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44995-MinimumWage.pdf
[7] http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm
[8] http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/01/28/obamas-minimum-wage-hike-put-into-perspective
[10] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/18/hill-budget-office-wage-hike-would-lift-pay-but-cost-jobs/
[9] Obama, Barack. United States Capitol. 28 Jan 2014. State of the Union Address.
The United States minimum wage is not indexed to inflation. Due to this fact, the purchasing power of minimum wage falls as the price of consumer goods increases. The current hourly minimum wage is set at $7.25, however many states do pay above this rate. One example of this is in Michigan, the current hourly minimum wage is $7.40. The last time a change occurred to raise minimum wage was in 2009. President Obama has put out a proposal that is designed to raise the federally required hourly minimum wage to $10.10 in 2015. The public opinion of this proposal is all over the board ranging from a positive outlook to a negative one. Some of the negative remarks are that it would dampen the economy and shrink the hiring done by small businesses. “The Household Survival Budget for the average New Jersey family of four is $58,500 and for a single adult is $25,368 in 2010. These numbers highl...
Should the minimum wage increase? Well, raising minimum wage both has 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 advocates raising the minimum wage will grow the economy for everyone. In 2014, the president of the United States, Obama, called the current Congress to raise the national minimum wage, which proves that Obama is 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
This article gives you a yes and no opinion on whether or not the F...
Imagine a world where you are working overtime, seven days a week, yet your kids are starving. You can’t get the education you need because you don’t have the time and money to afford it, and you can’t change jobs because this is the only one you can get. Unfortunately, this is the reality for millions of Americans living today. The federal minimum wage is too low to help families, and actually mathematically speaking, too low to survive on. The quality of life for minimum wage families is terribly low, and that is unacceptable. As humans, we should be looking after others and helping the poverty come out of their continuous cycle. Raising the minimum wage would not only help families be able to afford a better quality of life, but help them to afford healthy food, get an adequate education, and invest in the necessary health care they need.
"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."
In recent years the minimum wage has been a heated topic. People want to hike it up to 15 dollars an hour which they call a living wage, while others just want to keep it the same. There are also others that suggest to bring the minimum wage to around $10.78 an hour, which should be around the minimum wage now if we account for inflation from the 1960’s. I agree with that to a certain point. We as a nation need to bring up the minimum wage only up to ten dollars so that less people are living in poverty, and not any higher so that states with smaller economies don 't crash and burn.
In the 2013 State of the Union, President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage from the current $7.25 to $9.00 by 2015. This has caused arguments between the rich, small businesses, minimum wage workers, and the unemployed because it affects each of them differently. Obama’s plan is to bind the minimum wage to the cost of living, which ensures that minimum wage goes up with inflation. In general, this benefits minimum wage workers by improving their standard of living.
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 ...
A. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 should be increased in stages to $10.10 by 2016.
One reason that the government should raise the minimum wage is that people working full time make less than the federal poverty level; Which is $19,790 (for a family of 3). If a person were to work full time at a company that pays minimum wage you would make $15,080 a year.
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,
Since its inception, the minimum wage has been a hotbed for debate. If today’s leaders could manage to increase minimum wage, millions of families would benefit.
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.