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Negative effect of increase in minimum wage
Effects of increasing the minimum wage
Positive and negative effects of minimum wage
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What is it like to live on minimum wage in America? It has never been fun, but it is getting harder and harder as the cost of living keeps rising. While the cost of education, housing, groceries, healthcare, and utilities continuing to cost more, the American worker is scrambling to make ends meet on low wage incomes. Marco Rubio, author, politician, and attorney of law reveals, “Today the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 a hour, and has not been raised in seven years. In reality, a person working full time at a hourly wage of $7.25 will make about $14,000 a year”. Given that, the federal government deemed that the poverty line is anyone who makes less that 17,000 a year. Imagine supporting a family on those figures. Since it is apparent that the current minimum wage earner can not make enough money to support themselves, let alone a family, the minimum wage needs to be raised. To be brief, the minimum wage has been around for the past …show more content…
Since the cost of living has gone up drastically, raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do to boost the economy, lift workers morale and productivity, and improve the self sufficiency of potentially millions of American workers. Raising the minimum wage is a vital step in decreasing poverty and giving every family the opportunity to survive and succeed. Even businesses agree raising the minimum wage would give many customers more money to spend in turn increasing sales and higher profits for the companies. Therefore, raising the minimum wage would help and not hurt the economy and it would give many Americans a better livelihood and a more secured life. In today’s society it is very expensive to live in American and even getting by daily is difficult if you are living on minimum wage. Therefore, anyone who thinks the minimum wage should not be raised should try living in
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.
Poverty in the United States will keep increasing if Congress does not raise the minimum wage as living expenses continue to rise. With expenses such rent and food, millions of people in the US are struggling to afford the necessities to keep them alive. In order to help the working and middle class, President Barack Obama wants Congress to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour by the end of 2015. Unfortunately, CEO’s and the Republican Party in the US are against raising the minimum wage because it will cut into the companies’ profits and claim that it will cause job losses. There are several benefits in raising the minimum wage, as it reduces the number of people in poverty which in turn reduces the government expenditures to support people living in poverty. Also raising the minimum wage is beneficial to the economy because it creates wage growth which in turn gives people more money to spend. Finally, another benefit in raising the minimum wage is that it would reduce the income inequality gap, as there are many CEO’s in Canada and the US that make millions of dollars every year; while people earning minimum wage are struggling to survive. In the end, Canada and the United States need to raise the minimum wage in order to help people rise above the poverty line which will in turn help grow the economy.
About eight million Americans go to work every day, yet they are still living below the poverty line (Camden and Stern). More than one million of them are retail workers. If the minimum wage was to escalate, 734,075 people would be lifted out of poverty. Also the 769,191 people that are living on or near the poverty line would see their incomes go above it by 150 percent. These workers are struggling to provide basic necessities for their family and themselves. If minimum wage was increased poverty could be reduced. Most families are relying on government assistance to provide things such as food by using an EBT food stamp card and Medicaid because they are making minimum wage. Also if a minimum wage worker is only making $5.15 per hour, it will be impossible trying to afford health insurance. Sometimes the benefits workers receive don’t always cov...
The people of the United States should support raising the federal minimum wage because empirical evidence proves that it does not lead to job loss. Americans know a raise in the minimum wage is one way to help make work pay. For many working Americans an increase in the minimum wage will make the difference between living in poverty and not. Furthermore, a higher minimum wage, a floor to ensure workers that they're getting a fair deal for their efforts, provides a foothold into the middle class for many other families who would otherwise not earn a middle class living.
The cost of living in the United States isn’t cheap at all. The United States is a very big and expensive place to live in. People come from all over the world just to live here. Although America is a beautiful and wonderful place to live, to survive, minimum wage will need to be raised. Many others feel that if minimum wage is raised then it would greatly cause jobs to hire less people. This is because they are under the impression that the labor laws will come into effect, and business will began to cut employees and their hours. Three reasons why minimum wage should be raised are because the cost of living is too high, raising minimum wage would motivate middle class people to want to get a job, and by
Most people do not dream of working the rest of their lives on minimum wage, but this is the harsh reality for many Americans. Minimum wage was set for workers, so they will not get under paid. Over the recent years, people are wanting to increase the minimum wage to put more money in their budget. That it will help bring people out of poverty and into a middle class citizen. Thus, this might be possible, but many say not without some serious consideration. There will be many consequences with increasing minimum wage. Although increasing minimum wage will give workers more money, minimum wage should not be increased because it will increase prices, cut jobs, and hurt national budget.
There are millions of hard workers in America that are barely balancing themselves above the national poverty line and desperately need to be paid more. Minimum wage needs to be higher, because it will lessen poverty and help the employed to support their families. The development of economic policies was created in 1933. Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “The New Deal”. Minimum wage became one of the policies that had been included. It basically promised that all American employees would earn a sufficient salary to support their families. The New Deal was the beginning of control of wages by the federal government. It made sure that every worker would be capable of earning a living wage. Because $7.25 per hour is not a living wage, that promise has been
No one who works full time in one of the wealthiest nation on earth should have to raise a family in poverty. Every day for low wage workers is filled with struggle and anxiety. People are making heartbreaking decisions on which bill to pay, which meal to skip, and whether to buy a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas. The national minimum wage of $7.25 per hours is low. It has remained unchanged for five years while the cost of food, utilities, transportation, and others have risen. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10, and $13 by 2019 would benefit 28 million workers. Opponents feel that it would drag people further down in poverty and cause a lot of job losses which employers can respond back by cutting back on benefits or hours or maybe training.
Have you ever questioned, can a single mom or a low-wage worker really survive on minimum wage? If one takes the time to simply calculate what they would need to earn to survive, one might be surprised to see, that minimum wage isn't enough. Is there any possible way for a person who has found themselves in this kind of predicament to rise above poverty? In this essay I hope to prove although the welfare reform was meant to and can help people get back on their feet, it has mostly only further handicapped them. Even though the Welfare reform was intended to help the poor reach prosperity, it has enabled them stay dependent on the government.
With ever increasing prices on commodities and scarcer jobs, hard work alone is not enough to pay the bills when they are due. Imagine that you are stuck out in the ocean. The waves are pounding and every time a wave rolls in you are sucked in underneath. After surfacing you only have 15 seconds to catch your breath before the next wave hits. Over time your body starts to give out, 15 seconds is not nearly enough time to recover between each wave. You can only hold on for so long before your lungs give out and you are permanently sucked in underneath. This is what living on minimum wage feels like. People work so hard for money that barely covers their basic needs. Minimum wage is those precious 15 seconds of air that you get. It barely keeps you afloat. Americans need help to keep afloat, and the government could remedy the situation by adding more seconds(increasing minimum wage), so to speak, so that a person does not have to barely hold on, and actually make enough money to live
Can the world survive on minimum wage? How many people rely on minimum wage? America let’s make a difference for those that make low wages; even with education some are still making the minimum wage. Most Americans in the U.S. work at minimum wage jobs; workers complain because they do not have enough money to provide for their families. This problem is affecting many; minimum wage has not gone up since 2016. The minimum wage earnings are at $7.25 an hour, that is not that much. This is the reason why people have to go to the government for assistance. Overall, some workers cannot provide for their families making it stressful for them; those who are in college will not be able to pay their tuition because of minimum wage. These two reasons leads to people voting for $12 an hour in four states but the question is will it be equal for everyone?
Many people working are making an hourly wage of $7.25 which results in these workers still being considered poor even though they are trying to support their family. At a rate of $7.25 and working 40 hours a week, their yearly income would be $15,080 which is $1,023 under poverty line. This is with a worker having one child in the household. When the family is larger it results in a significant drop below the line. This is indicative that minimum wage at this time is not providing what is necessary to hard working families. (Smith,
“The bottom line is that five million low-income Americans working full-time for minimum wage, deserve a raise.” (Jim Clyburn) Increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 will raise wages for 28 million workers by $35 billion in total according to Cap Action War Room. Minimum wage should be raised because it will profit a various amount of Americans in a way that it will pull many out of poverty and reduce inequality.
In 2015, 78.2 million workers were paid at hourly rates. Which makes up 58.5 percent of all the wages and salary workers in the United States. Amongst those 870,000 workers earned exactly $7.25 per hour. The average household earns about $15,080 annually for a full- time minimum wage worker. ("Increasing the Minimum Wage: Pros & Cons") Minimum wage is the lowest wage that employers can legally pay their employees. The United States minimum wage was initially set at $0.25 per hour by The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. ("UC Davis Center for Poverty Research"). Due to a drastic increase to the cost of living since the early 1900s, it has then been increased to $7.25 an hour. The minimum wage should be
The minimum wage seems like a just and compassionate policy: its purpose is to assist individuals in the greatest need by keeping them out of poverty. Although few people would argue that a household supported by one or more minimum wage incomes can enjoy the greatest comforts that society has to offer, many believe that it is still a beneficial policy because it seeks to meet at least basic needs. However, Roger Miller and other economists argue that however effective the minimum wage law was when it was enacted, it is no longer serving its intended purpose. Miller (2017, 98-99) claims that poor families are often poor not because the minimum wage is not high enough, but rather because individuals in those households