Positive And Negative Effects Of Raising Minimum Wage

One of the biggest political topics in today's society is the federal minimum wage and whether it should be raised or kept at where it is now at $7.25 an hour. Arguments could be made for both sides on whether it should be raised or left alone. The majority of minimum wage in today’s job market are unskilled positions. Minimum wage jobs were created for teenagers and colleges kids as a way to get into the workforce and to have a little extra money for themselves. It was not designed to be a wage for people to live on. Increasing the minimum wage would hurt the economy by hurting small businesses, a huge loss of jobs and it would increase the competition between teens and adults. Overall if the federal minimum wage is increased it will have many negative effects on the economy.

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,

Raising the minimum wage is a very important public policy issue. Raising the minimum wage is a responsible policy that is supported by research and demanded by the American public. Each day, minimum wage workers across the country struggle to make ends meet and provide a decent life for their kids (Scott & Perez, 2016). Raising the minimum wage is a controversial issue, many believe that raising the minimum wage would only provide low wage workers more money to spend. However, the benefits can be endless for low wage workers. If minimum wage is increased across the United States it would afford the people effected more opportunities for financial freedom. Increasing the minimum wage would raise the standard of living for low wage workers, allow families to be removed from poverty, allow for government welfare spending to be reduced and lastly additional income being spent would positively affect the economy.

Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour can have detrimental effects on society. Some issues that may arise are increases in unemployment and small businesses not being able to handle the financial burden, which will lead into job benefit cuts. Furthermore, a rise in minimum wage will cause inflation and businesses to raise the prices of their goods and services. People purchasing power will continue to stay the same; the struggle to close the gap between products and services will not

Raising the minimum wage will help keep up with inflation. For example, this piece of evidence supports the fact that poor families are even poorer than what was expected. The article "pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-minimum-wage "stated, "The minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation. As a result, the pay of man workers, particularly those with families of three or more people, are no well below the poverty level." Minimum wage is already so low to the point that it is considered poverty.

James Sherk, a Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics, stated in an article, “Higher minimum wages also make working in such jobs more attractive, drawing scores of workers with outside sources of income into the labor market. Many suburban teenagers and college students enter the job market when the minimum wage rises. As they apply for job openings, they crowd out urban teenagers and disadvantaged adults who would have sought the jobs at the previous wages” (Sherk, “What is Minimum Wage: Its History and Effects on the Economy”). Whenever the minimum wage rises, more people are inclined to work to gain additional money, however, many of these people already have an outside source of income and do not need the extra work. These people frequently push out the people who sincerely need the work and would have gladly accepted the jobs at the previous wage. Thus, although this raise will attract more people into the workforce, they often overrule those who could benefit from the pay. Furthermore, supporters of raising the federal minimum wage contradict that more money in the pockets of low-wage workers means more sales, which, in turn, creates faster growth and more jobs. A study

A minimum-wage increase would put billions of dollars into the U.S. economy, benefiting businesses. It may not result in a surplus, but it will benefit the economy. Workers who are affected in any way by the minimum-wage being raised even to just twelve dollars an hour would see nearly eighty billion dollars in increased earnings over the next five years. Because low-wage workers tend to spend increased earnings locally on basic necessities, this will benefit businesses that rely on consumer spending. It still won’t come close to the equilibrium price, but it will help. The minimum wage last year was twenty-four percent below the level it was just about fifty years ago despite the fact that American productivity has more than doubled over that period and low-wage workers now have much more experience and education than they did back then. Now it’s the time to address this weakness in the minimum wage by raising it and lifting the earnings of low-wage

The United States’ minimum wage has been a concerning issue amongst the low wage earners because of the amount they earn is not enough for them to live on their own. Therefore causing the citizens who earn minimum wage to have an impossible time finding a place to stay and expenses for daily survival. Increasing the minimum wage will solve the issues that the minimum wage earners make, thus increasing the chances of survival for the entire population. Inflation is one of the reasons why minimum wage is a big issue, the minimum wage has not been keeping up with inflation at all causing things that would regularly be cheap to be more costly than it used to be. There are people who are against the raise of the minimum wage and may say that there will be an increase between of unemployment rate between the younger people because of the fact

Even though Ms.Steele considers the down fall of raising minimum wage, Mr.Knight provides clear evidence that raising minimum wage would help the America's economy.A 2011 study showed that increasing minimum wage lead to higher consumer spending.Another study showed that in the first six months of 2014 states that increased minimum wage, increased in jobs also.Last but not least, in 2014 University of Massachusetts Ameherst found that increasing minimum wage would lift 4.5 million Americans out of poverty and 3.5 million from food stamps.

The idea of having a federal minimum wage is a good one. The idea is to protect low and unskilled workers and allow workers to earn a living wage. The recent debate on the floor, though, is whether or not to raise the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour up to $10.10. President Barack Obama made this proposal during his annual State of the Union Address, and after this there were many hot debates about it. The debates focused not only on the pro side and the con side of increasing the minimum wage, but also alternatives to increasing it.

There are two sides to the minimum wage issue. Many small business are already struggling to make ends meet before the minimum wage was increased. The minimum wage being increased can cause goods for store to go up. Small business that are already barely making it, are going to need to pay workers close to $8,200 more a year, says NPR. Promotion 206 would slowly increase the minimum wage to 12. 00 dollars by 2020. For business that allows employees to be tipped are allowed to pay the employee up to 3. 00 below the minimum wage ,but as long as the tips that are earned are distributed to the employee would bring that rate at least up to the minimum wage. (ballotpedia) The rise and fall in minimum wage can help and hurt the economy both ways and how that works is very interesting. The big idea of raising minimum wage is to protect the worker at all cost and assume that the owner of the business is doing just fine. America is built on small business and this can damage the economy servilely.

There have been many arguments over the years stating that raising the minimum wage will greatly impact the US economy. Some of the arguments have been that this will stimulate the economy, a competitive wage for all, and capitalistic competition. Although raising the minimum wage might sound like more money in your pocket, it would not only increase the poverty rate but also would cause those in poverty to rely on the government for more assistance as the prices of goods and services would rise well above what they are now.

All across the country, workers are rallying together in order to raise their state’s minimum wage from as low as $7.25 per hour to $15.00 per hour. While many states already have a minimum wage well above the national requirement of $7.25 per hour, many Americans are claiming this is not enough to live off of. Also, many go as far as to claim that an increased minimum wage would actually boost the economy through the law of supply and demand, which states that an increase in the amount of money in the economy will, ultimately, increase the amount of output of the economy. While both of these may seem logical in theory, they couldn’t be farther from reality. An increase in minimum wage would lead to an increased unemployment rate, an increase in inflation, and an overall decrease in the productivity of the workforce.

The most prevalent and steadfast myth surrounding the raising of the federal minimum wage is that it will doom the economy. This might seem logical at first, but just think about it for a second. Why do minimum wage employees need more cash? The answer is simple: To spend it, to buy the things that they and their families need to survive. “Most minimum wage workers need this income to make ends meet and spend it quickly, boosting the economy. Research indicates that for every $1 added to the minimum wage, low-wage worker households spent an additional $2,800 the following year” (Fair). Furthermore, EPI estimates that if the federal minimum wage were raised to $10.10 an hour, it would result in over

In a paper titled “Four Reasons Not to Increase the Minimum Wage,” the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, offers four empirically backed consequences of increasing the minimum wage; these consequences include: the loss of jobs, low skilled workers being disproportionally affected and priced out of the job market, a minimal effect on reducing poverty, and higher prices for goods. The paper compiles a number of studies to support these