Minimum Wage Analysis

One of the biggest political topics in today's society is the federal minimum wage and whether it should be raised or kept at where it is now at $7.25 an hour. Arguments could be made for both sides on whether it should be raised or left alone. The majority of minimum wage in today’s job market are unskilled positions. Minimum wage jobs were created for teenagers and colleges kids as a way to get into the workforce and to have a little extra money for themselves. It was not designed to be a wage for people to live on. Increasing the minimum wage would hurt the economy by hurting small businesses, a huge loss of jobs and it would increase the competition between teens and adults. Overall if the federal minimum wage is increased it will have many negative effects on the economy.

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.

Minimum wage in the state of Texas starts off at $7.25 per hour for the working employee. People say that the amount of minimum wage is below the living wage; meaning $7.25 an hour isn’t enough money for the average person to meet the living necessities. The basic needs for us humans to survive are food, water, and shelter. Minimum wage won’t and can’t cover those needs.

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.

The federal minimum wage was established in 1938 as a part of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA established a number of constraints regarding labor including minimum wage, maximum work week, lowest employee age of 14, and other regulations. The federal minimum wage was “first established during the Depression, and it has risen from 25 cents to $7.25 per hour since” (Wihbey 1). The FLSA was established to protect the citizens and ensure a safe and fair workplace. Minimum wage was specifically included in the FLSA to ensure that employees would not be unfairly working for incredibly low wages. When minimum wage was first introduced to the US, it was determined to be “unconstitutional” in a court case. Since then, the wage has been adjusted for inflation about every 10 years.

Minimum wage affects many people and by understanding its evolvement throughout the years we can better understand how our government can better provide for those working minimum wage jobs today. Inequality is an inevitable factor in a capitalist market, people need proper incentives to work hard and be productive, and the incentive of more money or more opportunity is the driving force of capitalism and even the American dream. However there are several current complications that even those who are actively employed are living under the poverty line, like stated previously minimum wage from when it was first implemented raised along with inflation but then began to lose momentum in the 1970s and since then it began to stagnate and then drop along with increased inflation; if minimum wage were to be raise to $10.10 to become congruent with inflation it would bring 4 million people above the poverty line. Congress instituted the minimum wage in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The first minimum wage stood at 25 cents an hour. The last minimum wage increase occurred in 2007, when Congress raised the rate in steps from $5.15 an hour that year to $7.25 an hour in July 2009. The District of Columbia and 19 states have also established local minimum wages higher than the federal rate. The highest state minimum wage in the country occurs in Washington State at $9.32 an hour, however

The minimum wage has been an important element on the United States labor system and has sparked debates between employers and workers to this day. The main argument against raising the minimum wage is that the harmful effects raising the minimum wage would create do not justify the small-scale benefits generated by the raise. Business owners and conservatives claim that raising the minimum wage will result in job loss, hurt low skilled workers, and may result in higher prices for consumers. In a 2012 paper published in the peer-reviewed Industrial and Labor Relations Review (ILRReview), economists Richard Burkhauser, Benjamin Hansen, and Joseph Sabia, state that while some low-skilled workers living in poverty do see their incomes rise when the minimum wage increases, many others lose their jobs or have their hours significantly cut. Their study concluded that New York’s 2004-2006 $1.60-per-hour minimum wage hike was associated with a 20.2 to 21.8 percent reduction in the employment of younger, less-educated individuals, with the largest effects for those ages 16-to-24. Conservatives believe that even though teenagers are

I would wake up at 4 a.m.-six days out the week: to be on time for a minimum wage field job; 10 hours a day. As I got off my dad’s truck and my feet touched the ground; I closed the door and told him good bye- at the same time I felt scared, independent, and proud. A woman who had a red bandana around her mouth instructed me to put my lunch inside of one of the yellow school buses. We were instructed to make a circle as the sun began to rise. My eyes wondered to the 50 workers- teens and women but mostly grown men: all Latinos some dark skin and others light skin like my-self. Their tired eyes were red as the sun rose. Ten minutes later we entered the bus. Still a bit tired I began to close my eyes as my body moved with the swaying motion of

I have read the letter on $10 minimum wage, and would have to disagree with your statement. We have jobs that pay $7.25 an hour to teach kids how to work, not support a family. These jobs offer people little money when there out of a job, but while they work with little money, they need to be looking for a better job. You don’t want to be working at McDonalds your whole life, right? That’s why there are jobs like accounting, teachers, repair shops, etc. These jobs are going to support a family and they usually pay better than a fast food restaurant paying $7.25 an hour.

Since the enactment of the Fair Labor Standard Act in 1938, the minimum wage rate has been cause for much discussion. In more recent years, the public has made a push to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour. During his State of the Union address, President Obama, shared his views when he stated “… And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.” Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has made it well known that he wants to raise Pennsylvania minimum wage to $10.15(Ye Hee Lee, 2015). Early this year, Gov. Wolf signed an

Currently in the year of 2016, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, was talking with other candidates about minimum wage. The first president to establish minimum wage in America was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938. The wage was put at 25 cents an hour which converts to about $4 an hour in today’s currency. Minimum wage is just a portion of what we call the Fair Labor Standards Act. The act covers other aspects; such as, overtime pay, child standards, records, and government standards. Something that is observed is that minimum wage is not designed to go up with the rise of inflation. Which is where we come upon economic issues including workers earning a wage at the minimum. Another group of working individuals is those working for tips. The

This sort of comment is the type that really angers me most in debates surrounding minimum wage. I was not really doing all that much and so I figured I'd sit down and do the math for myself and for anyone else who hasn’t.

The impact of the minimum wage remaining unchanged raise concerns about the future of the economy. With the increased number of migrants into the country, unemployment and education, it is impossible to pinpoint how the minimum wage affects the American way of life. Previous researchers faced difficulties when proving the adverse effects of an increase in the minimum wage have on unemployment (Mărginean & Chenic, 2013). Additionally, there is a lack of knowledge as to how migrants from other countries affect these statistical data. The effects of lack of education can also contribute the minimum wage factors. Needless to say, there are many reason the minimum wage poses an issue across the country. Furthermore, with a high unemployment rate in some states, it is probable that the crime rates will also increase throughout these

My project was about minimum wage and my side of the argument. I enjoyed making my powerpoint.Since, the PowerPoint was the easiest part. The statistics surprised me the most when I was researching. Since, the statistics where higher than I thought. Also the history of minimum wage was surprising because minimum wage was very low from the beginning and now it is higher than

The minimum wage has arguably become the most controversial topic regarding our economy today, as it influences one of the largest classes of people within the United States, the working class. Federally, the minimum wage has not been raised in eight years, so it has stayed at $7.25 per hour for all non-exempt workers (U.S. DoL). The opinions on this topic are typically split across a progressive-conservative line, with progressives being in favor of a raise from $7.25, and conservatives wanting to stay at the current rate. This can be seen when looking at the typical progressive stances from states and municipalities that raise the minimum wage for businesses operating within their jurisdiction, since the higher rate among all levels of