Minimum Wage Should Be Raised

The United States has a plethora of labor laws in place to help clarify the rights of workers, employers, and even labor unions. Federal laws, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Occupational Safety and Health Act helped form the working standards that we still use in today’s society. In the scope of minimum wage policy, The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) helped pioneer the labor force in the US. The FLSA was the first federal statute (that was successfully passed) to introduce the forty-hour workweek, "time-and-a-half" for overtime work, the regulation of child labor, and set a national minimum wage for the first time. Like most federal statutes, adjustments needed to be made over its lifetime.

This paper will explore the pros and cons of raising the current minimum wage to $15.00. It will start with the history and reasons for the minimum wage. It will cite the positive aspects for raising it, as well as the negative consequences of that action. It will then touch on actual cases presently, within the U.S. economy. Finally, I will present my conclusion.

“I can’t, May won’t eat her chicken without mayo. Can’t you make an exception sir?”

From the article, what I have gathered that there has been a detailed deliberation and

National Minimum Wage, introduced by the Labour Party as part of the Maastrict Treaty 1992. The treaty had requirements for there to be a minimum standard of living for all citizens. The National Minimum Wage met this requirement. Is was highly criticised before being introduced , but did not have the negative impact on business as was suspected. This was partly due to the level being set fairly low upon introduction. There are set rates within 3 bandings according to age.

Would raising minimum wage benefit our society? Changing minimum wage could potentially hurt the economy. It would be nice to have an increase in pay; However it would only lead to inflation (The act of inflating or the state of being inflated Webster dictionary) with the economy.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is a law that states what the lowest amount a business can pay a contracted employee. Currently the law states that the federal minimum wage is $7.25 but there are many states that have their own minimum wage laws. There has been an ongoing protest over minimum wage for a long time and it has been changing consistently ever since 1938 with the latest change in 2009 when it went from $6.55 to $7.25. Many people think it should keep going up but many other people think it is going to hurt our economy if it goes up. There are many things that raising the minimum wage can affect in the economy and there are many steps that go into raising it. I think that the minimum wage should be raised to

Minimum wage always seems like a topic of conversation in the media. As of now, the current set minimum wage has been claimed as not being a livable wage, therefore there has been an outcry to raise it. However, we cannot turn a blind eye to what that may do to our economy. While raising the minimum wage can have a beneficial effects of providing a livable wage, reducing the need for dependent of poverty-focused government resources, and may even reduce crime, there can be many hidden problems that crop up through the woodwork that can undermine this improvement.

How does an employer decide how much to pay his employees? Logically, he 'd want to reduce overhead costs by paying them as little as possible. Minimum wage laws exist to protect workers from being exploited by wages too low to live on, as well as in an effort to reduce poverty in society and it 's far-reaching consequences. Many states have laws that raise the minimum wage at the same rate as inflation, but the federal government does not (Whitaker 634). The value of a new minimum wage begins to fall from the moment it is set. Because the costs of living are always rising, it is a hardship on those who must rely on wages which constantly degrade in value to meet these costs. The federal minimum wage, $7.25, has become too little for anyone to live on, especially without public assistance. The federal minimum wage has lagged further and further behind inflation over the last forty years (Covert). The minimum wage should be raised to a living wage for the entire country and set to index with inflation. As the cost of living increases, the wages paid to employees to cover that cost also needs to be regulated to increase in order to address income inequality and bureaucratic oversight; additionally, recent analysis shows that there would likely be modest benefits to the economy in the event of a modest federal minimum wage hike.

The minimum wage should be increased depending on each state. Some states are more expensive to live in such as Washington and New York. The minimum wage should barely stay the same or increase in non-expensive areas. There are many different reasons to increase or decrease the minimum wage.

There has been many conversations about what the positive impacts can come to America 's lowest income workers as a result of an increase in the minimum wage, and there has also been equally as many discussions over the negative effects the increase can have on similar people. This paper’s purpose is to combine each viewpoint and objectively analyze the arguments for and against an increase in the minimum wage. I will first discuss the benefits for an increase, then the disadvantages, and in the last paragraph, I will

During the late 19th century, and even a few decades into the 20th century, American laborers worked intensely. They worked both many hours and with very little pay. The bosses of these workers would pay them as much or as little as they saw fit. It wasn’t up until the year 1938 that the federal minimum wage was established in America at $0.25 per hour (that being equal to about $4.21 now). It was one of the greatest things in America at that time. It was revolutionary as a matter of fact.

Minimum wage is the minimum hourly wage an employer can pay an employee for work. Minimum wage helps people pay for things they use or need every day like food, clothes, and their homes. In some cases and for certain people the the federal minimum wage is not high enough for them to live on. In this paper I will argue that minimum wage should be increased to benefit people in a variety of ways, both socially and economically. Increasing minimum wage will also help cut down on government spending and pull people out of poverty.

The unions were brutally crushed by the industry leaders of the time period, with both private and federal armies being used to break strikes, strikebreakers being hired to take over the jobs vacated by the workers on strike, and blacklists being made to ensure the strikers never got a good job again. It was not until 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act established a minimum wage, at 25 cents an hour. However absurd that paltry amount of cash seems, it marked a turning point for the United States, and paved the way for better working conditions and better pay. Unfortunately, minimum wage laws have faced heavy opposition from a number of powerful political and economic figures, and the federally mandated wage bumped along until it reached the current minimum wage of $7.25 in 2009 (“History”). This means in over seven decades the United States has seen a grand total of a seven dollar increase in minimum wage. According to dollartimes’ “Calculate the Value of a Dollar in 1940”; in the span of the 78 years between 1938 and 2016, inflation has decreased the value of the dollar by 1542.53 percent. Even though the $7.25 of today is far better than the $.25 of 1938, the market of the United States has also changed, and while it was possible to work ones way up from minimum wage in the 20th century, the 21st century has a far lesser demand for skilled labor, meaning the jobs requiring skilled labor offer more than minimum wage already, and the jobs offering minimum wage rarely need more than the unskilled labor plentiful in the United

The national minimum wage was introduced in the UK in April 1999 by the Labour government. Essentially it formed a major part of their manifesto as it convinced the average population that Labour were beneficial for everybody. However, they would argue against classical economics and suggest there are wide spread benefits to be gained. The main argument is that the NMW would alleviate poverty across the country.