If a society with a minimum wage were to increase the amount of that minimum wage, the results would be both negative and positive. The minimum wage was created to prevent business owners from taking advantage of employees who desperately need income. Right now, the minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25. Small business leaders are fearful that an increase in payroll will cause their business to fail due to high production costs. Employees argue that working at a minimum wage is not enough to live comfortably, even more impossible to support a family. If the government were to increase payroll to a minimum of $15 per hour nationwide, it would cause 9 million job losses. On the plus side, business owners would see less turnovers and an increase in productivity, because people would have more spending money in their pockets, thus helping other businesses as well (Dixon, L. 2018, February 08). …show more content…
The reason for this is because most minimum wage workers are only part time, and don’t necessarily depend on their income (Richason, O. E. n.d.). Increasing income would also reduce public assistance and government transfers like Earned Income Tax Credit, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Growth, E. 2017, May 10). Unemployment among unskilled workers would increase, so educated and skilled workers will want an increase in their paycheck as well, costing companies less profit. As an example, four years ago, Seattle Washington had increased its minimum wage to $15 per hour due to a boom in the labor market. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, employees who work at the minimum wage worked less hours. In their research, they stated that worker’s hours dropped by 9% resulting in a net loss of earnings (Scheiber, N. 2017, June
Do you feel that the minimum wage is often too low in North Carolina for not only teenagers, but for adults providing for families as well. Do you think that the minimum wage should be raised a few dollars to allow citizens working on minimum wage to pay for college, save for insurance, buy food, and pay for rent? The average citizen must work hours on end to provide enough money to live sustainably. Thousands of kids live in poverty, and barely have enough food to stay nourished. These are the reasons on why we should raise the minimum wage.
Raising the minimum wage sounds like a beneficial idea, but there are also a few surprising reasons why it might not be such a good plan after all. A common assumption among Americans is that raising the minimum wage equals an increased income, but, according to Joseph J. Sabia and Richard V. Burhkauser that may not be the case. They discovered that, “examining only employment effects, however, may mask full labor demand effects. Firms may respond to minimum wage hikes by (i) reducing both employment and average hours worked by employed workers or (ii) increasing hours of retained workers to compensate for reduced employment” (Couch and Wittenburg 2001; Neumark and Wascher 2007) (595). What, exactly, would be the point in
In addition, having a minimum wage forces the bigger companies out there to share the wealth to the people who help produce it. American companies make billions of dollars and the least that they could do is share it with those who need the minimum to make it through their everyday lives. For example, McDonalds is a big company that makes an enormous amount of money that can afford to pay their workers who make their profit more than just the bare minimum. According to Zadrozny (2013), “Currently, approximately 3.6 million workers make at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25”.
What’s in it to lose? Nothing because by doing so it can help to reduce the government welfare spending at the same time helping someone to at least make ends meet. Therefore, raising the minimum wage will help people to take of their family basic needs such as good nutritious food, instead of the unhealthy food, health assurance for them to go to the doctor and a place to stay. People that work minimum wages not always able to afford their basic needs. They sometimes prone to sickness because of their unhealthy lifestyle and with no health assurance they won’t be able to afford to go the doctor or their
Franklin Roosevelt introduced minimum wage as a part of Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The purpose of minimum wage were to prevent poverty and to stimulate the economy by increasing consumer’s purchasing power. However, in 2015, 78.2 million workers were paid hourly, representing 58.5% of all workers in the United States. Among those people, 870,000 workers earned the minimum wage, $7.25 per hour and 1.7 million workers earned below the minimum. In total, 3.3% of workers earned exactly or below the minimum wage. For years, there have been heated debates about whether the government should raise the minimum wage. In 2016, California, New York, and Washington D.C. agreed to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Some people think raising the minimum wage will decrease poverty and improve the workers living. Instead, raising the minimum wage will make the job market more competitive and it will increase the poverty level. When minimum wage was raised to $10 per hour, it benefited 16 to 24 million people while half a million workers lost their job. Rather than improving, Faces of $15 will damage the U.S economy and deeply hurt living condition of Americans.
Since 1938, when the minimum wage was first introduced (at a rate of $0.25 an hour), the federal minimum wage has increased 22 times. The minimum wage is the salary floor, or the lowest possible rate that employers can pay employees.
Raising the minimum wage would hurt the less fortunate families. It spreads income unevenly. Some people would receive more pay and others would lose their jobs making families and the economy suffer. If someone have a minimum wage job that pays $5.15 it is better than no job at $6.00 (Henderson). If someone has a job that does not pay well be thankful for it, it still provides for the
⭐The minimum wage in the US is $7.25 an hour, and in more than 25 states it is even higher! This is a big problem and even though some think that raising the minimum wage is good economics, it actually would ruin the economy and many of the US citizens’ lives. This is because increasing the minimum wage would have negative effects like food price increases, loss of job opportunities, and less incentive for a higher education.
While I think that the minimum wage should be raised to $15.00 an hour, Mark Perry, a scholar at AEI and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan 's Flint campus, argues “Seattle’s new minimum wage law takes effect April 1 but is already leading to restaurant closings and job losses” (Perry). Perry wants us to know that the Seattle’s new minimum wage law is “a government-mandated wage floor that guarantees reduced employment opportunities for many workers,” and increasing the minimum wage will surely leads to small business closing and job losses (Perry). However, what he said is erroneous, and a recent report written by Michael Hiltzik, an American columnist and reporter, won a beat reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1999 and won a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in 2004, also validated this statement.
Minimum wage means the lowest amount that is allowed to be paid to an employed worker per hour. The federal minimum wage, meaning the minimum wage throughout the United States is $7.25, however, many states have chosen to raise theirs. The minimum wage must be raised because it will help lift people out of poverty and it will reduce the amount of spending on government programs. Raising minimum wage will help people get out of poverty. According to Census.gov, raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would lift 900,000 people out of poverty.
Minimum wage; two words that can be debated on by many for hours without end. “Raise it.” Keep it the same.” Whatever side of the fence you’re on, this is a hard topic to agree on since there are so many different arguments for and against this topic, that no one answer can be reached to please everybody. It would be acceptable to raise the minimum wage if there were not so many consequences of doing so. The minimum wage should be kept at $7.25 per hour, because if it is raised, the cost of living (for example: food, clothing, shelter, etc.) will go up, and the chances of being hired, especially for teens, will be more difficult than it already is.
Fast food workers around the country are fighting to raise the hourly pay minimum wage and their union rights.
Proponents of raising the minimum wage claim that if the minimum wage was raised, then many economic and social problems would be alleviated. This contention is at odds both with economic principles and years of creditable research. The effect of raising or even having a minimum wage has been studied extensively and the majority of studies have proven that raising a minimum wage does not have the desired effect. Both micro and macroeconomic forces affect the results of raising the minimum wage. The secondary effects of raising the minimum wage are bad both for
Increasing the minimum wage helps people, right? That is the topic of discussion in the recent discourse held by Professor Joe Silverman. With so many differing opinions it was a topic that needed to be addressed. The listeners, most of whom had minimum wage jobs, were exuding anticipation as this topic truly applied to them. Who “wins”, and who “loses” were the focus of the talk that addressed both the benefits and disadvantages of a raised minimum wage.
The most prevalent and steadfast myth surrounding the raising of the federal minimum wage is that it will doom the economy. This might seem logical at first, but just think about it for a second. Why do minimum wage employees need more cash? The answer is simple: To spend it, to buy the things that they and their families need to survive. “Most minimum wage workers need this income to make ends meet and spend it quickly, boosting the economy. Research indicates that for every $1 added to the minimum wage, low-wage worker households spent an additional $2,800 the following year” (Fair). Furthermore, EPI estimates that if the federal minimum wage were raised to $10.10 an hour, it would result in over