Increasing Minimum Wage In The United States

Ira Knight, who is an author of article “Let’s Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage”, expresses an opinion that increasing the minimum wage would help all struggling workers and at the same time improve U.S economy. On the other side, Janice Steele in her article “Keep the Minimum Wage Where It Is” argues that raising the minimum wage would have bad effects on workers, consumers and small businesses. Ira Knight’s article seems to be the stronger of the two positions because her arguments are based on several recent studies, and last but not least, she had a personal experience with the minimum wage job.

Raise the minimum wage: In the United States, studies show that women tend to make up a disproportionate share of low-wage workers. In the field of education, men tends to go more to STEM than women and that also leads to high paying jobs for men. If we raise the minimum wage, this will help hardworking women to support their families. Approximately, women made up two-thirds of all minimum-wage workers in 2012. With the current federal minimum wage i.e. $7.25 per hour, someone working full time, only earn $15,080 a year round. People working full time with minimum wage is still below the poverty threshold for any family with children and single person is also not far above the poverty line. So, increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would help increase the wages for about 15 million women, which will help close the gender wage gap.

The argument for minimum wage has remained remake consistent over the years. Some people are against minimum wage and the other think minimum wage can help you in a certain way. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Unites States federal government passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The law has been amended almost every year to expand coverage of the wage floor and to increase the wage itself. Many of the fifty states have enacted their own minimum wage laws, some of them set even higher than the federal level. Minimum wage jobs don’t only help adults at hard times it help teenagers and college students. I learned that the proponents for minimum wage believe the raw value of one’s labor to a business

By raising the minimum wage some people will no longer live below the poverty line, the amount of consumer spending will increase and more people will be in better health.

“Raising minimum wage doesn’t just benefit the workers behind me, it creates a proven ripple effect that increases wages all the way up the scale. Let’s get the facts straight, only twenty percent of people making the minimum wage are teenagers. The rest are hard-working adults, many of them have families, and I mean hard-working” (Biden). Studies have shown that increases in minimum wage prove that the public is overall safer and healthier. Many reports show that seven dollars and twenty five cents, the current minimum wage is a “startvation wage” and is not enough to keep families out of poverty (washington). Minimum wage in Illinois should be raised to benefit the people.

The minimum wage was created in 1938 in order to give the people some sort of fair labor standards.the minimum wage should not be increase because it will hurt individuals and businesses and hurt the socio economic of equity by increasing the minimum wage some workers are gonna gain some but other are just going to be laid off because the businesses need more money for their employees.

Studies have shown that raising the minimum wage since the beginning have found that minimum wage hurts the poor and make the rich even more wealthy. When raising the minimum wage it tends to take away the low skilled and younger worker jobs for college and even high school students. Also, it keeps people on well-fare, and encourages people to drop out of high school. The findings in many articles all say the same thing that I will ultimately be saying in this paper. Raising the minimum wage will not help people, when wages are increased you will see that employment across the nation will decrease exponentially. People that are not well educated like high school dropouts, some criminals that are in the working field and many other teenage workers will all be let go from the current job. In the first year alone, when minimum wage was mandatory, it resulted in 30,000 to 50,000 jobs lost in the first. The facts are out and still happen every year that minimum wage is raised. History speaks for

“The minimum wage is one of the most thoroughly researched issues in economics” (“The Case for a Higher Minimum Wage”). As this New York Times quote says, one of the largest issues in economics today would be the minimum wage. The government still has not come to a resolution for the issue because they are unsure of what the negative side effects of raising the minimum wage will do to the economy. The minimum wage needs to be raised because of reasons that would benefit the national economy and improve the standard of living. One of the reasons why it should be raised is that the minimum wage has not been increased since 2009 (Lu). Since the economy has grown greatly and further jobs have been made, shouldn’t the minimum wage grow too? Another reason why the minimum wage should be raised is that no one can live off of it at its current standard. The minimum wage is occasionally referred to as the “living wage” but as of this moment in time, people can’t live off of it. Many people live in poverty because they don’t have a high enough education which means they cannot acquire a job that pays better than minimum wage. Minimum wage should also be raised because it will

Minimum wages is major issue that middle and lower-income workers face today. It is the smallest amount of money that an employer must pay to his workers by law. The establishment of the law was in 1938 and it was called the Fair Labor Standard Act. Many hourly paid workers are protesting in almost every state in the US to raising the minimum wages. However, my adversary like some Republicans would say that the raising the minimum wage would hurt the economy that was already fragile. The point that they are making is understandable, however, the minimum wages should still be raised because of many reasons. Raising the minimum wages will help many hourly worker including low-income families, single mothers

Minimum wage is a problem, but most don’t want to raise it. Raising minimum wage will be a big problem now and including the future. Raising minimum wage is a problem depending on a social hierarchy. For many years the U.S had had many protesters and this is a problem according to state officials. Family's around the world are surviving on as little as 4.25 an hour in this case people have to survive off of food stamps and family members. Job owners can choose to higher the pay due to a raise in the company or a downgrade will determine whether they will make below minimum wage. Minimum wage should be increased from 7.25 to 9.00 an hour because of the over qualified, educated, and experienced Americans who are now relying on minimum wage jobs as a result of the struggling economy. Also, increasing minimum wage could help stimulate the economy. But, in order to get the economy back on track the spending power must be in the hands of the Americans who in fact, spend. With today's tough job market most job seekers are willing to acquire positions they are considered over qualified for, even if it means taking a pay cuts. Therefore, an increase in minimum wage will ensure that low wage over qualified workers have the means for vital necessities like housing, food, transportation and health care. Last year more than 200,000 Americans with college degrees were working minimum wage jobs due to our struggling economy. Furthermore, an increase in minimum wage would help stimulate the economy by

There are many people that work full time, and are still under the poverty line (Siekierska). Some can’t even afford a decent home to live in (Siekierska). This all would also happen if the minimum wage was raised, and the prices of everything would go up. The people working for minimum wage would still go nowhere economically, because if they get paid more, but the prices rise, it wouldn’t make a difference. Minimum wage affects many things, “And if there were no unintended consequences from government minimum wages, perhaps it would be a fine idea. But there are harmful knock-on effects that hurt some of the economy’s most vulnerable participants: young workers and those with few skills.” (Schultz) For now it should be kept the

The United States is able to maintain a favorable economy without using minimum wage laws according to critics. Those who oppose the increase think that the country would be better without minimum wage laws. According to the opponents, this country does not need to force a certain amount on a company and the free market will set proper wages (Learning). The natural market is powerful enough to maintain a good economy. A jobholder should need to work hard for a higher wage. Over time an employee should earn more pay not have his/her boss be forced to pay a certain value (Arnstrong). Hard work will earn them the wage that they deserve. Many people will lose their jobs if there were a raise. This will happen when the companies have people who aren't able to provide that value that they are paying for (Learning). So, by increasing wage of people who simply don't deserve it, many people will lose their jobs. Increasing wages will cause higher unemployment rates. By forcing companies to pay more than the work is worth, people may actually lose their jobs (Arnstrong). If an employer has to pay each employee more they may have to let people go. Minimum wage does not help with unemployment. Minimum wage only affects people already in the workforce not the people who are looking for jobs (Learning). People searching will not be helped from increased pay. It also makes it harder for a young person

Minimum wage has long been a topic that has brought on many heated debates. It has been said over and over again that minimum wage should be raised. These people say that raising minimum wage only does good for people. However, I, along with many other people, believe this is wrong, and we should instead be making moves to keep minimum wage where it is. Raising minimum wage may provide some positive effects, but those positives only go on to be overwhelmed by the negative effects caused by it. Wages should not be raised because if done so, employment would drop and companies would need to spend and earn more money.

In the US, President Barack Obama urges Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.25. Although some Republicans oppose to this action, overwhelming majority of Americans see that is a good idea (The Guardian, 2014). Regarding to the issue of minimum wage, there have been lots of debates for a long time. Some economists such as Milton Friedman deeply believe that minimum wage kills jobs, but some like Alan Krueger and David Card think, to some extend, it actually increased employment (The Economist, 2012). To detailedly understand the topic of the minimum wage, both sides debate of the economists on the issue should be concerned.

There has been great controversy on the federal minimum wage rate in the United States. Many argue that it should be raised to $15 to compensate people that are forced to provide for their family with a minimum wage salary. Others argue that raising the minimum wage will harm the economy, causing business to lay off workers and create an increase in prices. While both sides are valid, the latter is correct to an extent.