Minimum Wage: Helping Or Hurting America?

To begin, there is an extensive debate over whether if the U.S were to raise minimum wage, could it really help the working poor of low income families. Nancy Cook, in her article from the National Journal, “Why a Minimum-Wage Hike Can’t Help the Poor”, she points out that two thirds of around 100 surveys from 2007 had a negative effect and that it does more for the middle class than the lower one. (p.14). So, therefore, from her

People are still living on $2 a day here in the United States. As one of the wealthiest countries in the world, how is it possible for people to live with this little amount of money? I know that I cannot. In $2.00 a Day, Jennifer Hernandez, a single mother with two kids, is a person who lives on $2 a day as she tries to survive and support herself and her kids in the collapsing economy. The minimum wage job for cleaning houses reinforces the cycle of poverty that Jennifer and her kids live in. This cycle of poverty reveals that there needs to be major changes to the economical infrastructure of the United States since the poor cannot get themselves out of poverty even though they actively look for work or have a job.

Raising minimum wage would affect teenage workers. With younger adults and teenagers finishing up school, about half look for a job, while some don’t want to or have other plans such as going to college. If minimum wage were to be increased, it would make more people want to get a job. Increasing minimum wage would put more money in consumer’s pockets to spend in stores; therefore, stores would require more staff. Teenagers would have more money which would enable them to apply more funds towards their education to improve themselves. Supporters feel if people are going to get paid more, they would want to get a job. An increase in your pay would increase the consumer rate of purchasing things, and would require more staff due to more customers since they have more money to purchase things. According to Economic Policy Institute, “Over three-quarters 3.4 million of the affected workers were adults age 20 or older. The other 1.1 million workers were teenagers, age 16-19. Despite the relatively small number of affected teens, this nevertheless represents a large share, 19.9%, of all teen workers.” (Heidi Shierholz). Those who oppose believe that increasing minimum wage would cause prices of products and services to increase rapidly and cause people to limit their spending. As prices go up,

“Despite huge advancements in technology and productivity, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. The real median income of male workers is $783 less than it was 42 years ago; while the real median income of female workers is over $1,300 less than it was in 2007. That is unacceptable and that has got to change.”

A journalist who has Ph.D in biology wanted to know how people could live with just seven dollars per hour. In Nickel and Dimed, the author, Barbara Ehrenreich, introduces how people live with low-wage jobs. She told that employers sometime see their employees as potential criminal, their employees' work environments do not suit for their works, and the employees's wages does not satisfy what they need to survive.

We need to know who the minimum wage worker is to understand how the Federal minimum wage affects them. In 2015 workers that make at or below the federal minimum wage comprised 3.3% of the 78.2 million workers in the United States that were paid hourly rates. This was a decline from 3.9% in 2014 and is well below the high of 13.4% in 1979 when data was first recorded. 20% of hourly paid workers are under the age of 25. The age group of 16-25 comprises approximately half of those that are paid minimum wage in the United States. Only 11% of employed teenagers (ages 16-19) that work for an hourly wage earn the federal minimum wage compared to about 2% of workers who are 25 and older that work for an hourly wage (Bureau of Labor). The service occupation industry and predominantly the food service industry comprised 67% of those that earn the federal minimum wage in 2015 in the U.S. Bureau of Labor 2015 report.

Unfortunately, if the minimum wage were to be increased, many employees would start looking for higher skilled workers. As Sally Smith, CEO of Buffalo Wild Wings, explains; “When you start paying $15 an hour, are you going to take a chance on a 17-year-old who’s never had a job before when you can find someone with more experience?” (Perry, screen 1). The minimum wage is set for on-the-job training, and many employers feel that a worker must prove their worth through not only training but working their way up to higher salaries. If a worker has no skills to offer due to little-to-no past experience, employers will be less willing to hire them for more money. Businesses cannot spend more on wages than they earn in revenue, so they will have to make decisions on the types of workers they will want (Freiling, screen 1). The amount of money workers get can be imagined as a ladder; minimum wage being the first step. As a

An increase of a couple of dollars per hour or more in the minimum wage could make huge improvements in the difficult existence of the working poor, perhaps allowing them to exit the debt treadmill and stand a better chance of eventually rising into a revitalized middle-class. Researchers at the White House Council of Economic Advisors found that an increase to $10.10 an hour would raise wages for 28 million Americans about nine million of those due to the ripple effect. “According to a 2015 report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a worker must earn at least $15.50 an hour to be able to afford to rent a modest one-bedroom apartment, and $19.35 for a two-bedroom unit.”

McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and cleaning services: all of these have one thing in common-they are all minimum wage jobs. Their pay is low and work load high, and because of this living as a low wageworker is never easy. One must handle many hardships in order to make a few meager dollars, with which most cannot sufficiently live. 'The 'living wage' in the United States is between $9-10.18; sounds great to a college student, but in the real world this kind of money just isn't going to cut it,' (Ramisch). Minimum wage standards for American workers rest at $5.15 per hour, and in such slighted fields, very few make much more than that, perhaps $6-7, but even that is a rarity. The material life of a low-income employee includes bare necessities

It is not shocking to hear that tens of millions of Americans are living in poverty. Startling statistics about the poor are constantly being tossed around on television with images of run-down neighborhoods and malnourished children. The real surprise, however, is that millions of those in poverty are full-time, minimum wage earning workers. Many say one should feel morally obligated to help these people. President Barack Obama said it best in his February 2013 State of the Union address, “Let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one who works full time should have to live

Even with the hike of minimum wage to $7.25, workers were still $3,000 under the poverty level. An average family of four would be $6,000 under the poverty line. There is a popular belief that most minimum wage workers are teenagers. The truth is that 79% of minimum wage workers are 20 or older.

A class assignment on the cost of living showed me that if I were to take a minimum wage job right out of high school, I would be living barely above the poverty line. I’m fortunate that I’ve never had to worry about basic needs, however, if I were suddenly on my own, I would need two jobs to afford food and a place to live in my area. This exercise made me realize the incredible difficulties many people face just to subsist. For me, it translates into this fundamental problem: If a person working full-time cannot earn enough to provide food and shelter for themselves, the system is failing them.

There are several issues that arise from the inequality in wages such as; not being able to feed the family, pay the bills and raise children. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour. The current federal poverty line for a family of three is at $19,530. Working 40 hours a week, every week for a year the minimum wage would pay someone $15,080. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “3.6 million people, earn the federal minimum wage or less.” These Americans are working in the food, retail and the home health industries. They provide for our daily necessities yet they are unable to provide for themselves. Workers, like Aarin Foster have to work crazy shifts and do all they can just to get by.

The American dream has become increasingly harder for the people of America to achieve in recent years. This is in accordance to minimum wage laws, federally at $7.25 per hour (Department of Labor), which would yield $15,080 each year. At this wage, it would be above the projected 2017 poverty line of $12,060 in the year. The minimum wage is set as a limit that families are not allowed to fall under (New Data: Calculating the Living Wage for U.S. States, Counties and Metro Areas). The poverty line for a family of four would be $24,600 each year (HHS Poverty Guidelines 2017). The living wage in 2015 was $15.12 per hour for two working adults and two children (New Data: Calculating the Living Wage for U.S. States, Counties and Metro Areas), however

“Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do, but it makes for good business”-Jim Sinegal, CEO of Costco. Many of America’s employees are not being paid well, however, for the annual income of a full-time employee who works year-round is less than $16,000 (about $15, 080) according to the current federal minimum wage (Rebuilding). To put into retrospect how out-dated the federal minimum wage is, consider that the minimum wage of 1956 amounted to exactly $7.93 in 2009 (Henderson). How progressive is it that our nation’s workers being paid less today than workers from the 50’s? The federal minimum wage should be raised in order to assist families out of poverty, to ensure the effort and loyalty of workers, and