Negative Effects Of The Minimum Wage

The topic of raising minimum wage seems to attract a multitude of controversy. On one side, experts agree that raising a family on one minimum wage salary is almost impossible for someone who puts in fairly large work hours. Nonetheless, business owners agree that increasing these salaries will result in significantly less jobs, as well as force them to increase the prices on their consumer products. Federally, minimum wage workers earn $7.25 an hour, totaling up to $15,080 annually, with approximately six hours of working time per day. However, the price varies with state, with places like Massachusetts and Washington paying $11 to workers hourly.

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25. The last change to this wage was in 2009, when it was raised by $2.10, from the past wage of $5.15 per hour. However, there are some different laws relating to minimum wage. One of these laws is that “workers whose

Although we can see from the last time the minimum wage was raisied it had a positive effect on the economy as David Cooper points out in his article Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 Would Save Safety Net Programs Billions and Help Ensure Businesses Are Doing Their Fair Share, where it states that “More than five years have passed since the federal minimum wage was raised to its current level

Around 4% of America's hourly workers are paid minimum wage or below ("Minimum Wage"). Even though 4% might not seem like much, minimum wage affects everyone, including the people who write the paycheck and the people earning it. Three million employees and their employers are largely affected by changes in wage ("Minimum Wage"). Ever since 1938 when the first National minimum wage law was passed, minimum wage has been a very controversial topic winning over supporters and critics across the world.

Is it better for the economy to have a minimum wage or does it ruin the economy? Minimum wage is part of how the economy works. It deals with how much you may get paid or what might a customer give you in tips. Minimum wage has laws, helps with small businesses, and helps restore the wage for tipped workers.

Usually it is those who work in fast food, young, and low level jobs that work for minimum wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “In 2012, there were 3.6 million hourly paid workers in the United States with wages at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. These workers made up 4.7 percent of the 75.3 million workers age 16 and over who were paid at hourly rates.” Of course with the raise of minimum wage, comes the raise of inflation. Inflation affects everyone as well whether you get a raise in pay or not. “Despite the increases, inflation has eroded its value; returning it to the value it held in 1968 would require an increase to nearly $10 per hour. In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama called for raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour, which in adjusted terms would put it back at its early 1980s level” (John Wibhey). Sadly, our money no longer hold the value it once did and the subsequently affects

Minimum wage is the minimum hourly wage an employee can earn from work. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the minimum wage law on June 25, 1938. However, the United States has not always had a minimum wage. The United States minimum wage has been in effect since the Great Depression. Before then there was no minimum wage and there certainly were not any legislation to look after workers from development. Many of workers had to work in awful environments such as factories and sweatshops and they were only paid a few pennies a week. The minimum wage started at 0.25 cents per hour and the maximum workweek at 44 hours in 1938. As of today, the federal minimum wage is at $7.25 an hour, part of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The idea of raising the federal minimum wage that has developed nation wide attention, including protesting and arguments, has caused many discussions on why it could potentially help the economy grow and how it could result in the crash of the economy. Many people feel like raising the federal minimum wage is a must, while others think it will destroy the economy. There are many benefits that come with raising the federal minimum wage, but those benefits also come with many disadvantages.

The federal minimum wage has been raised 22 times since it was first put into place in 1938, and today’s minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Today’s minimum wage is

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

The minimum wage is intended to protect workers and fight poverty. In the United States, the federal government sets the minimum wage at $7.25 per hour although many states set higher minimums. There is currently a movement to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. This movement is called the “Living Wage Movement” (Living Wage Resource Center, 2016) or the “Fight for $15” (Fortunato, 2016) and purports to address the problem of poverty in America.

The federal minimum wage is a clearly defined wage that must be paid by businesses to their employees. Failure to accommodate the federal minimum wage is violation of federal law and punishable by the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor. Debate over the minimum wage rate has been revived in recent years, largely due to President Barack Obama’s belief that the minimum wage should be increased. Currently the minimum wage stands at $7.25 per hour. The minimum wage is $2.13 for a worker who receives tips, assuming that the wage with tips amounts to at least the federal minimum wage. There appears to be a fairly even split in those who believe the wage should be increased and those who believe it should not change; this would be the reason debate over the issue

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.

Another effect of raising the minimum wage is the expectation of higher paid, skilled workers, to also receive an increase in pay, further eating into a company’s profits. All of this results in higher unemployment. Unemployment in turn, can lead to homelessness and more expense on a government to provide for those unemployed and homeless individuals. This can also lead to more government funds being needed to address health concerns of these individuals.

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, from the United States Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, was a policy to change the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 in three additions, which began in July of 2009. (U.S., 2009).