Increasing the Minimum Wage Will Reduce Income Inequality Essay

to boost the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, the largest city to try to help its lowest-paid workers survive amid the nation's growing income inequality." -- Michael Winter, USA TODAY May 19, 2015 Understanding the potential of an increase in today’s minimum wage is the key to understanding the above statement. As a financial mechanism in American society, the minimum wage has helped to sustain generations of workers. Yet, there are two sides to the debate over minimum wage increases. One…

The idea of having a federal minimum wage is a good one. The idea is to protect low and unskilled workers from discrimination and allow all workers to earn a living wage. The recent debate on the floor, though, is whether or not to raise the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour up to $10.10 per hour. President Barack Obama made this proposal during his annual State of the Union Address on January 28, and following this there were many hot debates about it. The debates focused not only on…

Abolishing the Minimum Wage Many Americans think of the minimum wage as a means of raising the income of the working people. However, the minimum wage is not the best way to combat poverty. In fact, the minimum wage does more harm than good. The list of its negative effects is a long one: it causes unemployment; it prevents unskilled workers from getting the on-the-job training they need; it encourages teenagers to drop out of school; it promotes the hiring of illegal aliens; and it increases welfare…

living below the poverty line due to low minimum wage (Gidfar). A child living in poverty can face serious problems in the future. Reducing poverty should not be charity work. As citizens of the world it should be a social responsibility to find a way in which poverty can no longer be a living status, especially for a developed country like America. It is one of the top countries before Mexico with the highest rate of child poverty (Gidfar). In context, minimum wage has a large impact on poverty within…

The federally mandated minimum wage has been a divisive political issue in American politics since it first came into effect in 1938 under the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR advocated for the minimum wage with the argument that “all but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of manpower, government must have some control over maximum hours, minimum wages, the evil of child labor, and the exploitation of unorganized labor” (Greene 2013). This idea led…

they do not want to lose their jobs. In addition, a situation, when employees have more money to buy their needs to support their family and themselves, would reduce employees’ worry and stress about their family, so the employees’ performances and efforts for their company would increase. Decreasing the number of new employees would reduce a turnover rate, a rate at which an employer loses employees. Generally, employees decide to turnover because other company offers them with higher salary and…

An adult supporting themselves on minimum wage is hard enough, but to support a family as well can send a person plummeting below the poverty line. The set minimum wage of $7.25 is not the minimum wage we think it is. Minimum wage workers are not just teenagers taking your orders at a fast food restaurant, they are people of any and all ages trying to earn enough money to put bread on the table. The causes of the inflation of minimum wage are a conglomerate of selfish political leaders, lack…

a federal minimum wage is a good one. The idea is to protect low and unskilled workers and allow workers to earn a living wage. The recent debate on the floor, though, is whether or not to raise the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour up to $10.10. President Barack Obama made this proposal during his annual State of the Union Address, and after this there were many hot debates about it. The debates focused not only on the pro side and the con side of increasing the minimum wage, but also…

The minimum wage debate brings about a range of reactions from different people. There are those who believe that there shouldn’t even be a minimum wage and that wages should be determined by the markets. On the other hand, we have those who vigorously argue for increasing the wage minimum citing inflation, the poverty line and worker productivity. Regardless, we do have a federal minimum wage rate in the United States at $7.25 per hour, with some states having a higher minimum wage than the federal…

"No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage." -- Benjamin Todd Jealous "No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty." -- Jon Corzine Income inequality has been a major problem facing American society for decades, but has recently become a major concern. I personally believe the major gap between the income of the rich and poor is a not just, but is not a major concern for the government…