A Higher Minimum Wage May Help Workers Essay

If you can’t provide for yourself making the current minimum wage, then there is something wrong. Do the math, and don’t forget to include the new Obama Care required health care insurance that you will need to add to your monthly expenses, because most minimum wage jobs do not provide insurance. In the past, when minimum wage has been increased people making over minimum wage also received an increase. I was one of those people who received the raise the last three times minimum wage was raised. I was thrilled to be told by human resources, that I was getting another raise after I already received my yearly raise. Nevertheless, minimum wage has not been raised since 2005, here it is 2013, and the prices of goods has increased significantly in the last 3 years alone. The higher price in fuel has increased the cost of goods and services already, yet the current minimum wage has yet to increase. How are we supposed to provide for ourselves?

Raising minimum wage would affect teenage workers. With younger adults and teenagers finishing up school, about half look for a job, while some don’t want to or have other plans such as going to college. If minimum wage were to be increased, it would make more people want to get a job. Increasing minimum wage would put more money in consumer’s pockets to spend in stores; therefore, stores would require more staff. Teenagers would have more money which would enable them to apply more funds towards their education to improve themselves. Supporters feel if people are going to get paid more, they would want to get a job. An increase in your pay would increase the consumer rate of purchasing things, and would require more staff due to more customers since they have more money to purchase things. According to Economic Policy Institute, “Over three-quarters 3.4 million of the affected workers were adults age 20 or older. The other 1.1 million workers were teenagers, age 16-19. Despite the relatively small number of affected teens, this nevertheless represents a large share, 19.9%, of all teen workers.” (Heidi Shierholz). Those who oppose believe that increasing minimum wage would cause prices of products and services to increase rapidly and cause people to limit their spending. As prices go up,

More specifically, only about twenty-three percent of minimum wage workers live in poverty (Economics 21, screen 1). Many of the people working minimum wages are astonishingly young; a little over half are between the ages 16 to 24 (Desilver, screen 1). To make another point, sixty-four percent of those working minimum wage only work part-time (Desilver, screen 1). With this information it is easy to see that most of the minimum wage workers are young and working for experience or to start paying for their own things.

Many American workers will benefit from raising the minimum wage. 35 million workers, which is more than one in four, are receiving the minimum wage. 30 percent of percent of African American workers, 38 percent of Hispanic workers, and 15.5 million working men receive the minimum wage. These people would all benefit greatly from raising the minimum wage. It is a myth that people who receive minimum wage are working teenagers in fast-food. 89 percent of minimum-wage workers are 20 years old or older. 27.7 percent of minimum-wage workers have children, and may have trouble supporting their children with such a low income. It is also a myth that minimum-wage workers are high school graduates only or high school drop outs. 45 percent of minimum-wage

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 14% of the nation lives below the poverty line, the current population is 326,474,013, and 45,706,362 of the population lives in poverty every single day. One of the reasons why such a large chunk of the population is in poverty is because they are not being paid a reasonable salary for them to support themselves and their families. Raising the minimum wage can lead to problems, but gradual increases are made over time, it could be beneficial for millions of people around the nation. The positive effects of raising minimum wage is what makes it worth it. A raise in minimum wage can be beneficial; however, it must be a

In recent news, President Barack Obama has pledged to support an increase to the minimum wage of at least 9 dollars per hour. He also supports indexing the minimum wage according to inflation (Doyle, 2013). This would create an increase in the minimum wage whenever the cost of living rises. During his 2013 State of the Union Address, President Obama “argued that hiking the minimum wage would improve the lives of millions of workers and their families” (Jamieson, 2013, para. 9). The Obama Administration backs legislation brought to Congress by Senator Tom Harkin and Representative George Miller. Because the two men feel that a hike to $9 would not be enough, they support increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 (Jamieson, 2013). Unfortunately, in March 2013, the House struck down hopes for passing this minimum wage bill for a value of $10.10. Many reasons were given for the event, but, namely, there was division within the Democratic Party (Dinan, 2013). Now, the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 per hour and this last increase was made back in 2009 (Doyle, 2013). The debate over minimum wage can be found at all levels of society from the

In our modern society one of the seemingly least controversial topics is the minimum wage. The popular opinion wants to raise the minimum wage, but is the popular opinion always right? Throughout recent years, politicians have made promises to raise the minimum wage to help low-income earners live a better life. Contrary to popular belief, raising the minimum wage actually hurts low-income earners and low-skilled workers. We must first define a low-skilled worker. A low-skilled worker does not mean that particular employee is not intelligent; it simply refers to a worker who cannot perform as efficiently due to low educational attainment. Through this paper, I hope to inform you, Mr. Randall L. Stevenson, and our company, AT&T, about the disadvantages of raising the minimum wage.

The concept of minimum wage has been a huge issue among Americans and has really become a large discussion point among a lot of the political debates as well as the Internet recently. According to the United States Department of Labor, “The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. Many states also have minimum wage laws. Some state laws provide greater employee protections; employers must comply with both”. Regardless of the constant debates that occur on whether or not minimum wage should be a livable wage or merely a segway job for teenagers, a majority of these workers are older than 25 years old. As reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2014, of the 77,207, 61,883 of them are 25 years of age are

A minimum wage is the lowest hourly wage that employers have to compensate the workers for their service. Currently the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. However, many states also have their own minimum wage laws. In those instances, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two minimum wages. In this paper we will discuss the brief history of the minimum wage law and its current legislation. We will also analyze the pros and cons of raising the minimum wage, and the merits of each argument.

According to the reference (Issues Surrounding the Minimum Wage Debate REVISION 2- Bruce D. Philips,NFIB Research Foundation, 11/30/05) increasing the minimum wage hurts low-skill employees. Most economists agree that increasing the minimum wage destroys jobs. This job loss is concentrated on the least skilled employees in the economy. Research from Duke University, the University of Wisconsin, and Michigan State University indicates that increases in the minimum wage hurt low-skill employees. Cornell University economists found that groups such as high school dropouts and black young adults suffer four times more employment loss from a minimum wage increase than their non-black and more educated counterparts.

Minimum wage together with the jobs that pay near the minimum wage, play a crucial role in the United States labor force. According to Belman and Wolfson (2014) research indicates that alterations in the minimum wage affect about 20-30 percent of the entire labor force. These figures indicate the importance of considering the policies related to minimum wage since they affect a substantial fraction of the labor force. The U.S. labor department states that minimum wage workers who could benefit from increases in the federal minimum wage are majorly 20 and above at 89 percent. Of these, 56 percent are women; this goes in contrast that the minimum wage increase to $12 per hour will benefit the teens only (Dol.gov,

Although it is not a new topic in America, the decision to raise the minimum wage continues to be controversial, especially in the political realm. The political parties still move to block the opposing party from successfully implanting their ideals, causing either nothing to be accomplished or the situation to worsen. Research shows that raising the minimum wage a reasonable amount would lessen the gap between the rich and the poor, continue to fulfill its original purpose of protecting workers and keeping the economy in a healthy state, and contain more advantages with a minute influence on employment rates.

According to the information on pbs new, 3.3 million Americans work at an hourly rate or below the federal minimum of $7.25. These 3.3 million Americans represent just 4.3 percent of hourly paid employees. Employees 16 and older are paid hourly; they make up nearly 60 percent of the workforce. Minimum wage workers are usually young, female and white who are often working for scandalously low paying industries. 88 percent of the young works are going to be affected by the raise in minimum wage are at least 20, half of the works are over 30, who these jobs are essential to their families incomes.

When discussing minimum wage increase, it is important to view it from all spectrums of life. Unfortunately, some adults work full time in minimum wage careers making low annual wages. Not only is it hard to support their families, it is hard to maintain their

Increasing minimum wages cause people to need to lose their jobs. “Businesses will have to cut hours, hire and keep fewer employees, reduce benefits, and increase prices,” said Zack Hutchins, director of communications for the Business Council of New York State. Even though higher minimum wages sound amazing, many companies and businesses had to lay off many of their employees because of this. The people who support the raise and vote for it state that by doing this families can make end meet. However, Walter William, a professor at George Mason asked, “Is it likely that an employer would find it in his interests to pay a worker $15 an hour when that worker has skills that enable him to produce only $5 worth of value an hour to the employer's output?” As a result employers are less likely to hire inexperienced workers and teenagers and take away any chance for them to gain experience in the first place and leave them unemployed. If the minimum wage was $5-7 many more people would have jobs and experience.