The minimum wage is the lowest amount of required money that is paid per hourly or daily basis for the employees that are regulated by the government. Minimum wage laws started in New Zealand and Australia with an established purpose to provide a minimum standard of living for workers. In the United States, the first federally mandated minimum wage had provided workers 25 cents per hour as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In addition, the Fair Labor Standards Act has been regulating employers for the protection of American workers (“Federal Minimum Wage”). Minimum wage laws are legal regulations implemented to protect workers from exploitations that raise the issues about the pros and the cons of …show more content…
Small businesses operate with little capital and net profit margin. Opponents argue the increase of the minimum wage affect the small business owners the most because they have a hard time paying employees. The oppositions believe increasing the minimum wage creates a market distortion (“Federal Minimum Wage”). It means the government intervention in raising the minimum wage causes a higher price floor that defines as the minimum price for the employees’ service. Because of a higher price floor, it reduces the employment opportunities and business profit. For instance, according to Mark Wilson’s “The Negative Effects of Minimum Wage Laws”, he writes about a study conducted by Barry Hirsch and his co-authors about the methods of how employers adjust to a newly imposed minimum wage. In their study, employers cushion the impact of the minimum wage increase by “requiring better attendance, insisting that job duties are completed faster, imposing additional task on workers, minimizing hours worked with better scheduling, and terminating poor performers quickly.” In addition, businesses try to push the rising cost to consumers, which result in increased competition from imported goods. This makes them less competitive. The negative side of increasing the minimum wage affects employers, employees, and customers since study suggest every dollar bump to minimum wage workers come from the business owners’ or clients’ pockets; in addition, employers impose more job responsibilities to
Minimum wage is the lowest hourly wage an employer is legally permitted to pay an employee. Most employees are eligible for minimum wage, whether they are full-time, part-time, casual employees, or are paid on hourly rate, commission, piece rate, flat rate or salary. There are several different classes, which determine what minimum wage you will be entitled too. These classes are: General Minimum Wage, Liquor Servers Minimum Wage, Hunting and ...
“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:
Understanding the basic concept of minimum wage is important for every single individual. We all live in this world together and it is obvious that there is an order. In order to continue our lives and afford our basic needs, we all need to work and gain wealth. As the old adage says ‘‘There ain’t a such a thing as a free lunch.’’ We need to give up on something that we like to get something else that we like. That’s why, every single individual in the society face trade-offs. However, people have different status. Some people work as employees and some work as employers. In that case of minimum wage the trade off is between employees and employers. Employees work for employers in order to gain money and afford their minimal living expenses whereas employers give up on their money and pay for employees because employers take care of their need of labor. Employers pay for their workers who we call employees and employees gain hourly money. The calculated minimum money that they gain in an hour base called minimum wages. Besides, there is this cycle that everyone actually works
Minimum wage was originally established to reduce poverty. It was also made up to do away with sweat shops and companies not paying minors and others a fair wage for Some policymakers may believe that companies simply absorb the costs of minimum wage through reduced profits, but that’s rarely the case. Instead, businesses rationally respond to such mandates by cutting employment and making other decisions to maintain their net earnings. These behavioral responses usually offset the positive labor market results that policymakers are hoping for.”
Minimum wage is a difficult number to decide on because it affects different income earning citizens in different ways. According to Principles of Microeconomics, by N. Gregory Mankiw, minimum wage is a law that establishes the lowest price for labor that and employer may pay (Mankiw 6-1b). Currently, the minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. For many years politicians and citizens have argued on what should be the minimum wage that would benefit the economy and society in general. A minimum wage was first established in 1938 to increase the standard of living of lower class workers. To discuss what is better for the country and its citizens, people have to understand what is a minimum wage and what are its effects.
Minimum wage was established state wide in 1938 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt; at that time it was only 25 cents which is equivalent to 4 dollars in today’s world. It was established as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act which covered youth, government and overtime pay. Massachusetts was actually the first state before Franklin’s statewide acknowledgement, and it only covered woman and children without overtime. There are lot of issues with minimum wage now such as setting a statewide minimum wage to $10.10, which does not benefit places were living is expensive such as in New York. It leads to an imbalance in different states’ economies, and the government setting price controls in wage has some issues.
The United States hasn't always had a minimum wage. Before the minimum wage was introduced during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there was no national minimum wage, or indeed any legislation to protect workers from exploitation. Due to this lack of regulation, tens of thousands of workers were routinely subjugated in sweatshops and factories, forced to work in horrible conditions, and for only pennies a week. Early attempts by labor unions to create a mandatory minimum wage were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that they “restricted the worker's right to set the price for his own labor.” This allowed employers to continue abusing their workers through the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the incredible demand for jobs caused wages to drop even further to an all-time low.
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,
The definition of Minimum Wage is “an amount of money that is the least amount of money per hour that workers must be paid according to the law” (Minimum wage). Minimum wage, like other laws, are used to keep the economy in line. Minimum wage laws were invented in Australia and New Zealand with the purpose of guaranteeing a minimum standard of living for unskilled workers. (Linda Gorman) Minimum wage puts a price on the services one offers. Many different principles can be used to explain Minimum wage and explore the different aspects of it. Including what minimum wage does for our economy and the current status of it.
The first minimum wage was put in place by Congress in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was set at twenty-five cents. Since then minimum wage has continually fluctuated, and currently, it is $7.25, but Congress is now considering the Fair Minimum Wage Act (Whittner) which would, over the course of two years, raise minimum wage to $10.10 (Sherk). Adding almost three dollars to the United State’s minimum wage will most certainly have a large, positive impact on the nation. Congress should raise minimum wage because it would boost the economy, it would create jobs, and it would not be right to let people who work full time to live in poverty.
A dictionary defines minimum wage as the lowest wage permitted by law or by special agreement. The majority people live in the United State by paying the minimum wage for a lot of things. There are two main important about minimum wages, which are paying tickets in minimum wages and paying house in minimum wages.
Minimum wage is the lowest hourly pay employers are legally able to pay their workers. In United States there is huge debate on whether or not to raise the current minimum wage rates from seven dollars and twenty five cents per hour. States are leading push to increase the minimum wage by Democrats who appeal to working class Americans. Congress want to increase minimum wages above seven dollars and twenty five cents. The issues of whether to raise the minimum wage or not.
A minimum wage is the lowest job that employers may legally pay to workers. It
A minimum wage is an hourly wage that is established by the government, which represents the minimum amount an individual receives per hour. The federal minimum wage was established in 1938 under the “Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt” (Henderson). Currently, the majority of the states have their minimum wage less than $10. However, the federal government wants to increase the minimum wage to $12 across the United States. The federal government believes that increasing the minimum wage will assist numerous people in the United States, as most individuals are working in a minimum wage job to support their families.
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...