Minimum Wage And Fight Income Equality On Numerous Occasions

The minimum wage debate has been a hot topic over the past year, especially with the Presidential Election. This is a divisive topic that people rarely agree upon. There are essentially two sides you can take when it comes to this argument. Either people are for minimum wage or are against raising, or even having, a minimum wage. Proponents of the minimum wage are typically politicians who are lobbying for the vote of the people who feel that a minimum wage is critical to their wellbeing, and those who sympathize with people who earn “minimum wage”. Minimum wage is destroying America’s free market economy and someone needs to take action and find a better solution to this problem. Without anyone acting on this problem now, it can potentially be worse in the long run. Raising the minimum wage in the United States will do more harm than good to society because of the long-term effects.

The first federal minimum wage mandated by the government was in 1938. When the first minimum wage became law in 1938, it was set at just 25 cents. Today, the federal minimum wage mandated by the government is set at $7.25 an hour. “Many states have their own set minimum wages, which are currently above $7.25 per hour already. Currently, 29 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. D.C. 's new wage of $10.50 an hour makes it the first jurisdiction to cross the $10 threshold among the states,” (Halvorson). The last time that the federal minimum wage mandated by the government was changed was over 8 years ago. “The last time Congress voted to raise the minimum wage to its current rate of $7.25 an hour was on May 24, 2007. Since then, the cost of life 's essentials has shot up. Groceries cost 20% more, a gallon of gas costs 25% more, and average tuition at a community college increased 44%. But the minimum wage remains at

"According to a 2014 Congressional Budget Office report, increasing the minimum wage to $9 would lift 300,000 people out of poverty, and an increase to $10.10 would lift 900,000 people out of poverty.” Currently the federal minimum wage is $7.25. The government should raise the minimum wage to $9.25 per hour. We need to raise the minimum wage to the point where the lowest paid worker can afford their basic needs. Raising the minimum wage would strengthen the workforce and the economy.

A. Since July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage has been $7.25, but as of 2016 the living wage – the hourly rate a single person must earn to support themselves or their family – is quite a bit higher.

Which would raise it six dollars and twenty five cents. Which amounts to fifteen dollars an hour, which would equate for a full time worker to thirty one thousand dollars a year. A proponent of the minimum wage increase is Thomas Perez, who said “Workers are feeling like they have nothing left to lose” He works as an analyst for the National Employment Law Project, which aims at helping the working class of people. It ends by talking about Obama and his goal of raising the minimum wage to nine dollars an hour, as well as have it follow the consumer index so it would raise periodically Conversely in Arthur Brooks article he stipulates that President Obama neglects the poor. He reasons this by formulating research which he gives that says our current President only talks about the poor class on fourth of the time, while others such as former President Ronald Reagan talked about the poor in his speeches two thirds of the time. Looking at both these articles gives the notion that our President has agreed with raising the minimum wage. Although according to Brook's article he hasn't talked nearly as much about the poor class as other Presidents. It seems important to talk about this class of people since they will be the ones most affected by this social, and economic issue. Seeing the results of just talking about something you can see how effective it is in changing it. Without the

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 minimum. President Obama, in his first state of the union address of his second term proposed “Tonight, let’s declare that, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour” (The White House 2013). A year later, he has revised that number to $10.10 per hour after signing an executive order that has already raised the minimum wage for federal workers to that number. (The White House 2014). With more and more states raising their own minimum wage, a minimum wage increase seems almost imminent with Democrats and Republicans getting closer to a deal. (Bolton 2014). But we are more interested in the efficiency of a minimum wage implemented at the federal level. The main question that surrounds this debate is whether this price floor in labor markets is efficient given that the stated goal of the minimum wage is to make sure full-time workers earn a living wage and are above the poverty line.

The topic of increasing in the federal minimum wage has been hotly debated in Congress and between politicians and activists since the most recent increase to $7.25 in 2009. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 proposed a $10.10 federal minimum wage increase but failed in Congress, while a more recent proposition, the 2016 Raise The Wage Act, hopes to put wages at $12 per hour by the year 2020 (14). Propositions like these seek to allow lower-income working families to earn a living wage but they have faced resistance by conservatives. Stagnation of wages has caused various cities and states to spearhead minimum wage increases at a local level, with twenty-nine states now having wages higher than the federal minimum (13). Raising the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour would correct for years of deteriorating wage values and would pull hard-working families out of poverty while lessoning income inequality and boosting the economy from the bottom up with minimal costs to businesses.

Should minimum wage be increased? Passage one strongly supports and gives details on why minimum wage should be raised. Many workers are asking for a national minimum wage increase to $15 per hour, while others say that a higher minimum wage will stifle business and ultimately hurt the economy. So, should the minimum wage be increased or not? The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938 during the Great Depression under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was initially set at $0.25 per hour and has been increased by Congress 22 times, most recently in 2009 when it went from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. 29 states plus the District of Columbia (DC) have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage. 2,561,000 workers earn the federal minimum wage or below.

Political analyst and civil rights activist Benjamin Todd once said: “No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage.” Today, I have chosen to speak on the controversial topic of whether or not the United States should raise the federal minimum wage.

The minimum wage in the United States has been an ongoing controversy for many years now. The first minimum wage was established in 1938 (Reich, 2015, P. 3). That minimum wage started out at .25 cents an hour; compared to today’s higher wage of a government standard of $7.25 an hour. Many people believe that the minimum wage should be more so that those who live below the poverty level in the United States will decrease, however in many other people’s opinions the minimum wage should be the same. The minimum wage should stay the same at a low $7.25.

In 2017 there were many issues leading the fact people had very low minimum wages so no matter how hard you are working you are barely getting paid. In the article “Should we raise minimum Wage”, Bernie Sanders talks about the problems with low minimum wage right now. He states “. That’s a major reason why more than 43 million Americans are living in poverty. Health-care costs, child care costs, college costs, and housing costs are all going up. Wages are not.” (Bernie Sanders.) The amount that people are getting paid now for minimum wage is not enough to live off of and people can barely live off of it. The low wage has to go up in comparison with other things because if one goes up and the other does not they will not be able to pay for

Minimum wage is now at a steady $7.25 per hour and shows no sign of increasing anytime soon. There are states right now at the time that are trying to raise the minimum wage, and see how this will effect the economy of the area.

“Of course, nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages. … 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.”

In United States the minimum wage is been set by a network of federal, state, and local laws. Workers are generally been paid no less than the statutory minimum wage as specified by the government. As of July 2009, the federal government officially ordered a nationwide minimum wage level of $7.25 per hour. The federal minimum wage was at its highest at 10 dollars in 1968, as measured in 2014. Since then there were controversial debates over the

In 2015, 78.2 million workers were paid at hourly rates. Which makes up 58.5 percent of all the wages and salary workers in the United States. Amongst those 870,000 workers earned exactly $7.25 per hour. The average household earns about $15,080 annually for a full- time minimum wage worker. ("Increasing the Minimum Wage: Pros & Cons"). Minimum wage is the lowest wage that employers can legally pay their employees. The United States minimum wage was initially set at $0.25 per hour by The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. ("UC Davis Center for Poverty Research"). Due to a drastic increase for the cost of living since the early 1900s it has then been increased to $7.25 an hour. The minimum wage should