The Minimum Wage Is Not A Living Wage The cost of living can become very expensive and with these expenses, money is necessary. By raising the minimum wage, living expenses could be less of a financial crisis for families. A higher minimum wage would also supply families with more ease because the struggle of making ends meet would be less. This paper discusses the advantages of a higher minimum wage, why it is necessary for those who live in, or are very close to living in poverty, and the shortcomings of the current minimum wage. All of this is to say that, the current minimum wage is not enough for families to survive on so it must be raised. In 1938 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Act, establishing, among other things, the minimum wage (US Department of Labor). In 1938 it was 25 cents an hour and a maximum workweek of 44 hours. In those early times, this was a landmark bill and created quite a controversy between workers in factories who worked hard all day long and industry owners. "Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, ...tell you...that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry" said President FDR upon hearing the fuss over setting a minimum wage. His statement disregarding the fact that a minimum wage places a burden on industries brings up the next point. The historic argument that raising the minimum wage would result in lost jobs because corporations cannot afford it and therefore would lay off employees must be dispelled. With the majority, 66 percent, of low-wage workers not employed by small businesses, but rather by large corporations with over 100 employees, means that these employers are large enough and produc... ... middle of paper ... ...est hit by the recession” . With the federal minimum wage currently at $7.25, raising it to just $9.00 7.6 million workers would be able to earn enough on a weekly basis to survive. With $10.10 per hour over 16.5 million workers would be able to pull themselves out of despair and eventually move above the poverty line (The Effects of Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income). With these increases the wages of over 30% of Americans would increase. That is potential financial stability for for 30% of America 's households. A higher minimum wage would benefit families of the working class who need the extra money in order to survive. Not only are higher wages needed but companies can afford to give them. With the minimum wage at one of the all time lows, an increase is of the utmost importance considering it would strengthen families and the economy.
In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt produced a progression of economic policies called The New Deal. One of those policies which, became known as the minimum wage, guaranteed that all workers in America earn enough pay to provide for their families. The New Deal marked the beginning of federal control of wages to make certain every worker be able to earn a living wage. The economic system was created by people, is maintained by people, and is constantly modified by people (Cunningham 52).
“Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937 impassioned speech calling on Congress to help the one-third of Americans who were “ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished” heralded in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and 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:
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
Throughout the decade, a continuous firing debate still remains, whether to raise the minimum wage or keep as it is. People believe that raising the minimum wage can hurt the economy. More will lose jobs than gain. Though all are true, the amount of poverty shown throughout the decades are jaw dropping. That is in fact one of the leading factors. As there is yin and yang, the demand for a higher minimum wage is no coincidence or selfishness as others perceive as is. The poverty shown throughout the decade is deadly prominent. Minimum wage should be raised as people are not gaining enough money compared to the past, despite with more education, too many low quality jobs, “in active” unemployment are outcasted from the statistics, and finding jobs is more difficult than it was decades ago.
A federal minimum wage was first set in 1938. The first minimum wage was just 25 cents an hour in 1938. Can you imagine surviving off of 25 cents an hour? Now just over 70 years later the federal minimum wage is now 7.25. The question at hand is the federal minimum wage enough to meet the minimum requirement for a good, happy and healthy life? Some states and cities say no. While a select few states and cities have mirrored the federal minimum wage of 7.25, some states have placed their state or city/county minimum wage marginally higher than the federal minimum wage. So why would some states prefer to have a higher level than required by the federal minimum wage when some state have decided to match or even go below the federal minimum wage level. The answer to this question lies within each state city and county and how they perceive the cost of living in the presiding area. Minimum wage needs a makeover in America despite some of the negative effects that may come along with it. This paper will explore the reasons behind federal and state minimum wages and why some of them differ among states counties and cities across America.
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 ...
The minimum wage must be raised because the cost of living has gone up considerably. Education is essential if one wishes to work, and the cost of education has increased drastically in the past twenty years. Companies should be requied to pay workers what they deserve, and that is more than minimum wage is now. With our new technology and the technology in the future work is harder and more complicated. A minimum wage increase would raise the wages of many workers and increase benefits to those disadvantaged workers.
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 Principles of Macroeconomics by Gregory Mankiw, “The U.S. Congress first instituted a minimum wage with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938” (Mankiw 4-119). Minimum wage is used to set a limit of pay employers must pay their employees. Through the years the minimum wage has raised as productivity has raised. The minimum wage has constantly fluctuated and changed multiple times.
Americans are not wrong in thinking that increasing the minimum wage will increase low-wage working families’ incomes, and some of these families will rise above the national poverty threshold. While increasing the minimum wage might benefit some American families, it will hurt others. Increasing the minimum wage will eliminate many low wage jobs, which would then result in many people jobless and therefore, a substantial drop in those individuals’ household incomes (“The Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income”). . “Raising the country’s minimum wage could boost the incomes of millions of Americans, but it could also potentially cut total employment by hundreds of thousands of workers” (Kurtzleben). An increase in the minimum wage lowers employment, which makes it harder for these workers with minimal skills to find a job. Congress then explains that low income families will actually not bring in any benefits from an increase of the minimum wage (“Would an Increase in the Federal Minimum Wage Help or Hinder Small Business” 2-3). While increasing the minimum wage might raise the standards of living for some low wage workers and families, if the increase in minimum wage reduces employment rates, there is no certain answer on what
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 to the passage of the first minimum wage law in American history, twenty five cents an hour (Greene 2013). Prior to the passage of this law, several state minimum wage laws had been struck down as an unconstitutional prohibition of workers’ rights to set the price for their own labor. However, in 1941, the Supreme Court case U.S v Darby Lumber Co upheld the federal minimum wage, overturning the precedent it had set for state level minimum wages. The Court dismissed the argument that Darby Lumber did not engage in interstate commerce based on the commerce clause and stated that Congress had the constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce, along with intrastate commerce that directly affected interstate commerce (U.S v Darby Lumber Co.1941). Justice Stone, writing for the majority stated that Congress
On the other side of the argument Americans believe that with the increase of minimum wages it would help Americans out a lot more. One possible way that the increase in minimum wage may help an individual out is in the article Minimum wage Pros and Cons, “The Economic Policy Institute stated that a minimum wage increase from the current rate of $7.25 an hour to $10.10 would inject $22.1 billion net into the economy and create about 85,000 new jobs over a three-year phase-in period. Though this may be true, one problem
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.
For many people in the United States, life is no more than a regular work cycle. Members of working class usually have a High School diploma and may work in a low skilled occupation or manual labor. Most of the enjoying age of this people is spent in working, as they don’t want their new once to have a life they struggling through. Therefore, this essay will argue that minimum wage should be increased federally to $15/hour by 2017. Firstly, if taxes touches the sky, why should the minimum wage be on the ground? Increasing minimum wages would also create new opportunities for education as the students wouldn’t have to work crazy hours. Likewise, many couples won’t have to work multiple jobs in order to manage the household. Lastly, it will lift
Many critics claim that that raising minimum wage increases unemployment, especially for unskilled workers, and harms small businesses, including grocery stores and restaurants. The argument declares that companies such as these rely mostly on unskilled workers for labor, and if the minimum wage increases, then their profits and, therefore, hiring would decline, creating a...