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Federal Minimum Wage

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Should the government raise the federal minimum wage? The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour, however many states have their own minimum wage laws. For example, the minimum wage for California is currently $10.50 per hour and is subject to rise gradually to $15 over the next few years. While many people believe that it should be substantially higher, others believe that increasing it would harm small businesses and the economy. Now the question that remains is whether the federal minimum wage should be raised. Even though job losses from raising the minimum wage are negligible, minimum wage should not be raised because a fixed minimum wage actually hurts the same low-rung workers it vows to protect and contributes to the …show more content…

Now in regards to the rise of minimum wage this type of inflation is defined as cost-push inflation. For cost-push inflation to take place, demand for the affected product must remain the same, while the cost of production changes. To compensate for the increased cost of production, the producer must raise the prices of the goods and services to the consumer to maintain profit levels while keeping pace with expected demand. For example, if a manufacturer is suddenly forced to pay his workers $10.50 per hour instead of $9.25 per hour, he will suffer great financial losses as a result of the increase. Therefore, the manufacturer is left with one of two options, which are either laying off a couple of workers or having to raise the price of his products to recoup for the …show more content…

According to an article, written by Rick McGahey, there is study conducted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) that found “no correlation” between minimum wage increases and employment levels. Moreover, this finding is apparently consistent with a 2013 Center for Economic and Policy Research summary report which found that almost all recent empirical economic research on minimum wage increases “points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage.” Now if there is correlation between minimum wage and job losses, what exactly makes people oppose raising minimum wage because ever since 1938, the federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times. For more than 75 years, the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita has steadily increased, even when the minimum wage has been raised; so what kind of issue do those that are against it have now, once this has been put out into the

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