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The effects of the minimum wage in the united states
The effects of the minimum wage in the united states
Effects of minimum wage law
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It's 6:00am and that annoying beep of your alarm is ringing in your ears. You get up, start the coffee maker, shower, and get dressed in your work attire. You start your car and back out of your drive-way before noticing that you're running on the last fumes of your tank. You drive to nearest gas station where you see gas prices have, once again, risen.
The aforementioned scenario is only one of many examples of the depreciating value of the dollar. In fact, in the past five years, the CPI-U has increased from 168.8 to 190.7 - that's a 12.97% inflationary increase (Historical CPI)! Sure, to Corporate Joe in his fancy sports car, a few extra pennies for gas isn’t much, but what about the school janitor who is trying to successfully raise a family of four on minimum wage?
The most immediate reality behind Living Wage organizing is the dramatic erosion of the minimum wage. Even with the 1996 increase to $5.15 an hour the buying power of the minimum wage is still 30 percent below its peak in 1968. This is true despite the fact the economy was about fifty percent more productive than in 1968. A minimum wage that had kept pace with productivity gains would be roughly $11.20 today (Pollin and Luce, 58).
In fact, in 2003 the poverty rate rose from 12.1 to 12.5 percent leaving 35.9 million people at or below the poverty line of $18,660 for a family of four (U.S. Census Bureau). These 35.9 million people trudge through their manual labor occupations day in and day out only to see the (few) dollars they earn slowly depreciate in value.
In 1906, John Ryan, advocate of the living wage, wrote "Every man who is willing to work, has, therefore an inborn right to sustenance from the earth and on reasonable terms or conditio...
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...ome of the fiscal burden they experience. With the increasingly inflating dollar and therefore the depreciating value of the minimum wage, an implementation of a universal living wage would be the humanitarian thing to do.
Works Cited
Historical Consumer Price Index. Historical CPI. 2003. 4 March 2015.
Pollin, Robert and Stephanie Luce. The Living Wage: Building A Fair Economy. New York: New Press, 1998.
U.S. Census Bureau. Poverty 2003 Highlights. 26 August 2004. 25 February 2015.
< http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty03/pov03hi.html>
Glickman, Lawrence. A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of a Consumer Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Acorn.org. ACORN: About Acorn. 2005. 2 March 2015.
Imagine working under poor conditions for over 40 hours a week to afford basic human necessities only to remain nothing more than a cog in a corporal machine seen unworthy of livable wages. While this may seem unrealistic, it proves as reality for many lower class Americans. Minimum wage has seen a drastic decline in relation to the inflation of living costs, an issue addressed in Lew Prince’s, “The American Dream Needs a Fair Minimum Wage”. In the article, Prince, a business owner, states, “... in 1979, the minimum wage was $2.90 -- that would be $9.50, adjusted for inflation in 2014 dollars”. Even with this information, many americans above the poverty level line argue against an increase in wages. Although opinions often
Our country was founded upon the principle of equality for all. “We hold these truths to be self-evident--that all men are created equal...” (Thomas Jefferson). Yet our country continues to distribute its wealth in a conspicuously unequal manner. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, tells her story of her impossible journey to live on the minimum wage in America. Ehrenreich abandoned her life as an affluent journalist and embarked on a mission to live as an underclass worker. From Florida to Maine, she traveled and attempted to live in various cities. In each location, she faced a harsh reality similar to millions of working-class Americans. In many of the jobs she took, she was faced with disrespect, harsh conditions, and long hours; all for very little pay. Utilizing statistics, as well as her own personal
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
Although the livable wage has a good intention of decreasing poverty, it is not consistent with the American spirit of capitalism because the livable wage promotes an economy that does not support business. America has always been a business friendly country. America is a business friendly country because of the American belief in a hands-off approach to commerce and the economy. This is called “laissez-faire” economics; the system allows American companies to make decisions that are best for the firm which in turn increases wealth throughout society because it makes an incentive to increase productivity. It also turns out that this system of capitalistic economics is the most efficient at allocating scarce resources. For example, the opposite of capitalism, a command economy, failed in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union’s economy failed because it tried to allocate resources through central planning, instead of having businesses determine how much of a product to produce. Our system of limited government interference in business has allowed American society to become the wealthiest societies in the world. The lack of government intervention income has become ingrained with t...
Mandelbaum, Robb, “There is a Salary Gap when pay themselves”. New York Times. Ed. Abramson Jill, Pub: New York City, February 18, 2014
To begin, an overview of utopian history is needed. The utopian lineage is as old as the Earth itself. Specifically, it started in the Garden of Eden, which is considered the ultimate utopia. After that, the next major utopia is described in Plato’s The Republic. According to Plato, as along as the major people classes live justly with one another, the overall society will be in harmony. Next published was Thomas More’s Utopia.
One of the major ideas about the future of humans has been the utopian society, or simply utopia, which is an ideally perfect world where everyone can live harmoniously together despite different backgrounds, ethnicity, religions, beliefs, and so on. However, the idea of such a society is bombarded with many arguments, most of which point out to that, considering the current and harsh conditions that the world is facing, the perfect and dreamed world cannot exist or be realized. To elaborate the utopian society topic, this essay will explore the progress of study of a utopian society, the important characteristic of a utopian world, and investigate the probability of a reality where such a world may exist in mankind’s
“The vision of one century is often the reality of the next…” (Nelson 108). Throughout time, great minds have constructed their own visions of utopia. Through the study of utopias, one finds that these “perfect” societies have many flaws. For example, most utopias tend to have an authoritarian nature (Manuel 3). Also, another obvious imperfection found in the majority of utopias is that of a faulty social class system (Thomas 94). But one must realized that the flaws found in utopian societies serve a specific purpose. These faults are used to indicate problems in contemporary society (Eurich 5, Targowski 1). Over the years, utopian societies have been beneficial in setting improved standards for society. By pointing out the faults of society, improvement is the most likely next step. Citizens should take advantage of utopian literature in order to better future societal conditions (Nelson 104). Because it is impossible to create a perfect society in which everyone’s needs can be met, society must analyze utopias in order to improve their existing environment.
In today’s society, the question of minimum wage is a large political topic. Many people argue that it is impossible to live on a minimum wage lifestyle. In her novel Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich looks into this issue. In an experiment in which she mimics the life of a single woman, she moves into the low-wage workforce in three different cities in America. Within these cities, she attempts to make a living off of low-wage work and records her experiences, as well as the experiences of the true low-wage workers around her. Throughout Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich utilizes both vivid imagery and data in order to persuade the audience to agree that the low-wage lifestyle is truly un-livable.
Did you know that the sun’s core can reach about 15 million degrees Celsius? This bright star has many significant happenings. These interesting occurrences include sunspots, solar winds, coronal mass ejections, and solar flares. Sunspots are cool, dark-colored regions of the photosphere related to a shifting magnetic field inside the sun. However, sunspots are only dark in our perspective. A sunspot removed from the bright background of the Sun would glow brightly. Solar wind is the radiation of heat and a steady stream of charged particles. The wind blows about 450 kilometers a second throughout the solar system. Also, the Aurora Borealis occurs when highly charged particles from the sun's atmosphere move into the Earth's atmosphere via solar wind. Occasionally, particles will burst from the sun in a solar flare, which can disrupt satellite communications and knock out power on Earth. The flares are as powerful as millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at the same time! Coronal mass ejections are huge bubbles of gas braided with magnetic field lines that are ejected from the Sun over the course of several hours. Coronal mass ejections are known to be formed by explosive reconfigurations of solar magnetic fields through the process of magnetic reconnection, however its exact formation mechanism is not yet understood.
The gap in wealth between the rich and the poor continues to grow larger, as productivity increases but wages remain the same. There were changes in the tax structure that gave the wealthy tax breaks, such as only taxing for social security within the first $113,700 of income in a year. For CEOs this tax was paid off almost immediately. Free trade treaties broke barriers to trade and resulted in outsourcing and lower wages for workers. In “Job on the Line” by William Adler, a worker named Mollie James lost her job when the factory moved to Mexico. “The job in which Mollie James once took great pride, the job that both fostered and repaid her loyalty by enabling her to rise above humble beginnings and provide for her family – that job does not now pay Balbina Duque a wage sufficient to live on” (489). When Balbina started working she was only making 65 cents an hour. Another huge issue lies in the minimum wage. In 2007, the minimum wage was only 51% of the living wage in America. How can a person live 51% of a life? Especially when cuts were being made in anti-poverty and welfare programs that were intended to get people on their feet. Now, it seems that the system keeps people down, as they try to earn more but their benefits are taken away faster than they can earn. Even when workers tried to get together to help themselves they were thrown
Understanding more about sunspots, their cycle, radiation, and magnetic properties will facilitate scientists to unlock the mysterious workings of the Sun. With today’s technology this understanding will come more quickly. Knowledge of sunspots may lead us to be able to predict when solar activity could affect the Earth like it did during the solar max in 1989. Information like this could eventually allow us to be able to protect ourselves from solar radiation.
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
Utopianism has surfaced throughout history in a variety of forms as it shapes itself to suit the needs of socio-political climates. A survey of these historical periods in Utopianism will examined the origins of the Utopian impulse in theory as well as in practice. This examination will ultimately lead to an exploration of the modern Utopian impulse, which due to advances in technology, shits in intellectual production and a uniquely 21st century socio-political reality differs significantly in context and form from the works in its lineage.
...ctually go to the beach and park and do fun things like Ryan, Daniel, Sunya, and the other kids in my class do on holidays. Then I will have something to actually share in class like the other kids.