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effects of low wages
impacts of minimum wage law.
impacts of minimum wage law.
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The Living Wage The general ethical issue and why it is important to me personally There is an idea out there that an employer should be responsible for making sure that their employees are making a living wage. The reason that this is a burning issue for me is because a living wage is subjective. What is a living wage for me may not be what another person considers a living wage. I will look into some of the fallacies of the argument that employers are responsible and explain where I think they are wrong. In the aspect of my life I had to make the decision to come back to school and lose out on the second household income for my family of 3. During the process of making this decision things had to be sacrificed, no more vacations, no more going out to nice expensive restaurants, taking road trips across state lines without lots of planning. Those type of things were included in my “living wage” when my family had 2 incomes. The underlying ethical question or questions involved that I intend to answer Some of the questions I hope to answer are; why is it the employers’ …show more content…
However the effects of it could have impacts on others, for instance a waitress could become a tip only type job. There would also be many changes to laws, for example a minimum wage would not be necessary because most positions would be filled with skilled workers who are able to barter for their wages. Organizations would have to evaluate how they pay their employees and decide if they want skilled workers or unskilled and then how much they would be willing to pay for those employees. The rate of pay could potentially keep employees from accepting positions, so that would be a factor as well. I think that despite there not being a minimum wage or a living wage requirement an employer or employee would be able to work out a satisfactory wage that they can both benefit from and in the end both being happy about
Almost two years ago the company where I am employed, RGIS LLC, mandated a pay policy change for the hourly employees. Hourly employees make up over 95% of RGIS’s labor staff. This new, four-tier payment scale, aptly named “Pay 4 Performance” (p4), ultimately affected thousands of employees who had been with the company for years and had high pay rates simply as a result of longevity. The four new levels would have a matching pay scale based upon each individual employee’s production. These levels are what RGIS calls an ASET level: Auditor, Specialist, Expert, and TopGun, with each level advancing to a higher production and pay rank, respectively (Company).
The struggle for pay equity is part of America's evolving sense of what is fair and just. After all, slavery was once an accepted part of this democratic nation; union
The minimum wage being abolished would greatly benefit the employee. It would give unskilled and unqualified workers, such as teenagers, college students, interns, and part time workers, the opportunity to be hired, with no discrimination or rankin...
The living wage movement is an economic reform movement that has become one of the most important public policy issues that has come up within the last 10 years. Although there is no single definition, it is often defined as an hourly salary that allows working families of four to have an income that is above the federal poverty line. This means that the livable wage laws often stipulate that hourly wages should be two to three times above the federal Mininum wage. However, unlike the Mininum wage, the living wage has so far only been enacted on the county and city level. Cities and counties enforce the living wage for companies that have contracts with their respective cities and counties, receive subsidies from their cities or counties, other economic benefits cities and counties provide to companies, and in some cases a livable wage is required for the tourist areas of the particular city. For cities and local governments, the livable wage is perceived as a measure to increase the welfare of the poor. However, like everything in life the livable wage creates its on costs that along with its benefits of increased wage to some low income earners.
"The rich get richer while the poor get poorer." This quote was originally stated in William Henry Harrison's 1840 speech but sadly enough can still be used today to describe our economic downfall and crisis. With California currently holding a minimum wage at $10 many argue that this just isn’t cutting it anymore. One of the only ways to live prosperously on this income is to work, relentlessly, day in and day out. With many people living day-to-day and paycheck- to-paycheck, it is safe to say that the place minimum wage is right now is not working for most of the nation. With our developing economy, standards of living, unemployment rate, and debatable employee morale, it just seems right to increase the minimum wage.
What is your prototypical poor person? When I think of poverty, a dirty individual on the side of a freeway or someone cramped on the side of a bridge comes to mind. Today, the poverty icon has dramatically changed. This individual is an overworked, single mother. She is someone who works numerous hours to survive and to meet the basic needs for her family; however, her job is not paying enough no matter how many hours she is working. As a young adult, I realize that work ethic is one of the most important characteristics of the United States of America. Studies have shown that our people are working harder and more years than people in any other country. The harder a person works, the more money they expect to obtain, but this is not the outcome for everyone. The economy is booming; however, there are many hardworking individuals who are still struggling to survive from their minimum income. The Living Wage movement was established to combat and help several low-wage workers in the 1990’s. This movement gave them
First of all, a clear definition of the living wage should be established. The Universal Living Wage Campaign Organization says that if a person works forty hours a week, a living wage should provide the worker and his/her dependents with proper nutrition, health care, housing, clothing, and transportation. Some debate has arisen around this definition though for a few reasons. First of all, the number of dependents the wage-earner must support has a huge impact on the calculation of the living wage. A wage-earner who only has to support himself can survive with a much lower wage than a wage-earner who must support a family of five for example, so how should legislation take this into account? If the idea of the living wage is to pay workers based on need, a law that provides a wage capable of supp...
Living wages became a hot topic in 1994 when Baltimore, Maryland officials adopted a policy that required all companies that received public funds or worked on government contracts to pay a wage that would sufficiently provide for the basic needs of the people they employed. Living wages differ among cities since it is calculated by the cost of living in that area. The cost of living is based on available childcare, healthcare, housing, food, and transportation costs. According to www.responsiblewealth.org, (2005) in 2000, the living wage amounted to $17,050 a year for a family of four, or $8.20 per hour for a full-time, year around worker. Most studies show that the economical benefits of living wages, such as worker productivity and reduced turnover, are increasing, and I must agree with Neumark (2003) who explains that living wages overall can reduce poverty, and living wage laws are effective, but there is an obvious tradeoff that occurs with wage increases, specifically employment reductions for individuals with little or no skills. Issues such as these will be discussed in greater detail in this paper.
When Congress created minimum wage I don’t think they were thinking in the long run. Minimum wage is the lowest hourly rate any person can make and if they receive tips it can be even less. Currently in Florida the minimum wage is $8.10 per hour and when you narrow that down, you can barely make it anywhere making $8.10 for every hour you work in a day. Education is needed in order to make a decent living but even then education is expensive and depending on what you. Not only that if you don’t get a good enough job making enough to live and pay the student loans back it almost seems like it is a waste of time.
Nowadays to live in Napa, CA where I live, one single person should make at least $12 an hour to receive a living wage. Then for one adult and a child the adult has to make $25.82 an hour at least for two adults and one adult working he/she should make at least about $24.13. The minimum wage in Napa is $9, and it is very hard for people to survive on a minimum payment. People often work two jobs to pay rent, bills, but the sad part is that the family loses a lot of time together because parents are working most of the time. For example, I know a man from my neighborhood who works two jobs during the day from 8a.m to 4 p.m. He works at a hotel as a dishwasher, and during the night, he works in a restaurant as a dishwasher. I rarely see him, and I see he is not with his family all day. He works almost every day to sustain his family, but doesn’t have time to hangout with his family. I just think that this is wrong because it is inhuman that a person works all day, seven days a week. My neighbor is so skinny, and I think he is like this because he works too much. We should have a minimum wage increase to benefit all people who work hard like him.
The low income workers who receive public assistance will seem to make more in wages but will lose money from what public assistance they were also collecting causing them to request working less hours to maintain what they would have received from public assistance. A worker with children who is paid $7.25 an hour will have a higher income than if they were paid a higher wage, but because at the higher wage they will lose the public assistance such as food stamps, welfare, and other benefits because of making the higher wages. This is causing people to request to work less hours so they can receive their public assistance benefits. Who seems to gain the most from a living wage requirement is the public employee who is in a union as their involvement with the union is a form of protection in the job market. The living wage laws can and will have negative effects as they can in certain job markets reduce employment opportunities for the low skilled workers or the workers without a higher education. Some employers will be forced to eliminate some job opportunities because they will not be able to produce enough profit to be able to or justify to having to pay the higher wage. The hardest hit will be the mom & pop or non-chain stores as they do not have the backing or income to support
In the article, “Let’s Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage” by Ira Knight, he argues how the economy would benefit from a minimum wage increase and he uses a lot of studies to back up his claims. Janice Steele, however, argues that raising the minimum wage will hurt small business and job opportunity. She uses fear to influence workers into not increasing minimum wage by making large generalizations. The article “Let’s Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage” by Ira Knight and the article by Janice Steele “Keep the Minimum Wage Where It Is” both had good points. However, Ira Knight makes a stronger argument.
Like I said about the businesses it would be harder to employ people, because the business wouldn’t have enough money to pay people because it would just be starting out. Just to get minimum wage you would need to work at least 40 hours a day and that’s on the wage we have now, besides raising it would cause these businesses to cut hours from employees. Raising the minimum wage also means that the price of goods go up because the value of the dollar decreases because you are basically flooding the market with the money because of how much you would get paid.
When it comes to contract negotiations, labor unions may differ from one and another throughout the different industries, but they usually share the same goals when it involves contract negotiations (Sloane & Witney, 2010). During these procedures, demands are usually made by from both parties, the employer and the union; this processes main goal is to negotiate a written agreement between each other covering a multitude of issues and concerns (Sloane & Witney, 2010). These talks are typically the most confrontational part of the relationship between labor unions and management, especially when it comes to wage issues (Mayhew, n.d.). This author will take a look the wages and wage-related issues, employee benefits, institutional issues, administrative clauses, and make recommendation that will would prevent wage-related grievances from happening.
...se small businesses wouldn’t be able to afford to pay as many employees. By raising the minimum wage many teenagers and others who rely on these jobs as their only source of income could potentially be put out of a job. These people would no longer be able to afford the items they want or need. Businesses would have to raise the price of consumer goods to compensate for the higher cost of employees. Businesses could potentially lose customers that have been put out of a job and are unable to afford the company’s services. Raising the minimum wage would have a domino effect on the economy leading from one negative thing to the next.