Minimum Wage Thesis

In 1936 by President Roosevelt who signed the Fair Labor Standard Act(FLSA) making a federal minimum wage of .25 cents an hour (equivalent to $4.18 today)(Grossman) in order to maintain a “minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being, without substantially curtailing employment”. This wage only affected about 20% of the entire labor force. The Fair labor Standards act was not always looked at being the best way to go, when it was enacted just like in today 's society it was fought against to raise the minimum wage. Many corporations were arguing against the creation of the

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.

In between the early 1900’s and late 1930’s laws regarding organized labor and laws protecting businesses were passed or declined. Different industries had different minimum wage requirements and some didn’t follow at all. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, one of the first things he did was sign a New Deal. The New Deal consisted of new proposed ideas and laws; many in particular pertained to labor. This was due to the happening of the Great Depression. The New Deal helped ban child labor, raise the minimum wage, and regulated the appropriate amount of hours a person should work.

In 1938, the first national minimum wage laws in the United States were passed as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which served as “a floor below wages,” to reduce poverty and to ensure that economic growth is shared across the workforce. Today, many people who work for companies that pay at or near the minimum wage and remain near or below the poverty level rely on government health and food security and income programs to supplement their living expenses. Since 1938, there have been many additional policies to the Fair Labor Standards Act that have changed many things, such as increasing the national minimum wage numerous times to the currently salary level, which was set in 1997. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 was a policy to change the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 in three additions, which began in July of 2009. (http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/posters/minwagebwp.pdf)

The minimum tipped wage should be raised. There are many reasons that an incease is due. The tipped minimum wage has been the same since 1991. And yet, the cost of living continues to rise. It has risen by 75% in the past 27 years due to inflation.

Minimum Wage Minimum wage has plagued a majority of teens and young adults for years and has never truly let up on them. Minimum wage is a huge part of how Americans live our lives. Many sources used in this paper were U.S News Articles and get information from a chief economist. Minimum wage should be increased because people want to have better lives than they have now which means that they are really fighting big government reps because they need to get better support from people to help increase minimum wage for their own lives. Minimum wage affects many Americans and how they can continue to make a living or how they live their lives.

1938 was the year that minimum wage was first established by President Theodore Roosevelt. At the time it was only $0.25, which is equivalent to about $4.13 today. However, even at that amount people, the 25-cent raise resulted in significant job losses. And if it didn’t work then, it wouldn’t work now. If an employer has tight budget compensation, and the minimum wage is raised, it means they can longer afford to pay their

When the first minimum wage was established in 1938 the job market impacted negatively in the loss of a lot of

One of the most frequently asked questions in our country today, seems to be: “Will I have enough money to live comfortably?” With the ever growing population in America good sustainable jobs are getting harder and harder to find. Many people are settling with low paying, mindless jobs, with no chances of growth, were they are getting paid minimum wage. But, what is minimum wage? Is it a law to help people get more money or it is a law that makes it harder for unskilled workers to find jobs? The real question is; what real effects doesn’t minimum wage have on us? In the mid-20s and 30s factory and mining jobs in America were dreadful places to work at. People working were forced to work long hours for slave wages, never enough to support their families. To help support their families, children very commonly were forced to work, making less than the average America male at the time while doing just as dangerous or more dangerous jobs. On June 25, 1938 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act or the FLSA. When it was first signed it was only meant to cover only one fifth of the jobs in America, the manufacturing, mining, and transportation industries. It set the minimum hourly wage to $0.40 per hour and limited the number of hours’ person can work to 40 hours per week. In addition, it banned the use of child labor in the work place and set the minimum working age to 16 years of age. (Grossman, Jonathan) Today minimum wage has expanded to every job in

In order to reduce income inequality, increase people's economic security, and help get people off food stamps, the government should increase the federal minimum wage. The average CEO makes 774 times the amount of a full-time minimum wage worker according to Cathrine Dill from forbes magazine. If minimum wage increased to $10.10, that number would decrease to 559. Although it’s not much, it still reduces the income inequality between the rich and poor people in America. Also, increasing the minimum wage will increase people's economic stability. Alternet.org states, “It is no longer the case that the people making the minimum wage are largely teenagers. In fact, now more than half of workers earning under $10.10 an hour are forced to support

The minimum wage must be raised because the cost of living has gone up considerably. Education is necessary if someone wants to work, and the cost of education has gone up dramatically in the last twenty years. Companies should be paying workers what they need, and that is considerably more than what the minimum wage is now. If the minimum wage were to increase, it would raise the wages of lot workers and increase benefits to workers with disadvantages.

After the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed approximately 121 bills into law. One of these bills included the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which would ban oppressive child labor, set the maximum workweek at 44 hours and finally, set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents. President Roosevelt believed that it was the government’s duty to protect against “starvation wages and intolerable hours” (Grossman). Today, we still follow the principles that President Roosevelt laid out by having a federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. In the status quo there is a debate over whether there should be an increase in the minimum wage. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states that “Congress shall have Power to provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”; by interpreting the Constitution as a living Constitutionalist would, to provide for the general Welfare of the United States an increase in the minimum wage is necessary for its citizens (Barbour).

In his January 2, 2014 online Atlantic article entitled “Should the Minimum Wage Depend on Your Age?, author Jordan Weissmann discusses the possibility of changing the minimum wage based on the age of the employee. He hooks in readers by bringing in what can also be considered background information by talking about a man named Charles Krauthammer who proposed that you have two minimum wages, one for the “Breadwinners” and a lower minimum for everyone else, and why hes idea is horrible. After hooking in his readers he goes on to try and prove his Thesis: that depending on the economic situation, basing wage on age could be more beneficial than some other ideas. To prove this thesis he claims that it's more beneficial because it is easier to

In addition, immigrants also try and apply for employment when they can, to try and reach their goal of the “American Dream” or their ideal theory of freedom. However, because of the necessity of jobs they can obtain, which are those many the American’s don’t want including: janitorial, agricultural, street cleaning, or even risky jobs. Getting less than minimum wage, not aware of the laws of the government as it pertains to paying taxes becomes a cycle where they are forced by many of the employers to break the law which otherwise would be followed. Not to mention, the occasional employer takes advantage of the 'illegal alien' and usually pays below minimum wage because they know the worker has no option but to either quit or accept it. And

Thesis Statement: Although minimum wage helps reduce income inequality, we should abolish the minimum wage because it increases unemployment, it's unconstitutional, and it does not promote healthy competition.