Essay on Pros and Cons of Minimum Wage

The minimum wage debate has been a hot topic over the past year, especially with the Presidential Election. This is a divisive topic that people rarely agree upon. There are essentially two sides you can take when it comes to this argument. Either people are for minimum wage or are against raising, or even having, a minimum wage. Proponents of the minimum wage are typically politicians who are lobbying for the vote of the people who feel that a minimum wage is critical to their wellbeing, and those who sympathize with people who earn “minimum wage”. Minimum wage is destroying America’s free market economy and someone needs to take action and find a better solution to this problem. Without anyone acting on this problem now, it can potentially be worse in the long run. Raising the minimum wage in the United States will do more harm than good to society because of the long-term effects.

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.

Minimum wage is an important and hot topic throughout the world, especially America. The minimum wage is the lowest amount of salary that an employer can give to their employees for their work. The federal minimum wage is covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act, also known as FLSA. The FLSA covers standards for government, local, and state employees, including overtime pay and record keeping. This protects the rights of the employers. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, was the first president to establish the idea of minimum wage in 1938 due to the economic downfall of the Great Depression. (“History of Minimum Wage”) The Great Depression was a huge recession for the economy and for the people. Since FDR applied the minimum wage, the minimum wage keeps increasing over the years. According to Bebusinnessed website, the first year with minimum started at twenty-five cents an hour, which is equal to around four dollars and fifteen cents in USD in present currency (“History of Minimum Wage”). Over time and many presidents later, in 2016, our lowest minimum wage is seven dollars and twenty-five cents. From the numbers presented on this website, the minimum wage seems to be increasing and getting better with time, but in fact, the government is not to kept up with the current “real” dollar amount. Nowadays, parent employees cannot fully support their children. The real question, in our society, should minimum wage be increased or decreased in order to fulfill both the government

I have been in the workforce for many years and have just recently enrolled at SNHU to finish my Business Degree. Most of my working career has been in management where I have personally hired over 350 employees over the years and truly understand that a person’s salary must be synchronized to the value that an individual brings to your company. The lower the wage the less important this really is, the higher the wage the more value that they have to bring to the table. As the minimum wage increases so must the abilities, skills and education level of the worker. My persuasive essay “The Economics Against a Federally Mandated Minimum Wage” presented many challenges since the issue impacts not only the worker but the business and the unemployed as well. I found this to be a very complex issue and required a great deal of extensive research and evaluation in order to find strong supporting evidence and articles that would support my position.

In the United States, the minimum wage was passed during the Great Depression in 1938 to protect the buying power of normal workers in a period in which the “unemployment rate was still a very high 19 percent” (Sklar, 2009, p. 1). Since that time, there has been significant debate about the controversial topic of raising the federal minimum wage. The federal minimum wage law was created to eliminate unfair practices of sweat shops and manufacturing companies during this time period. Thus, the minimum wage is defined as the smallest salary that an employer is legally allowed to pay employees for their work. Since the time of the Great Depression, minimum wage has been utilized to guarantee that employees are paid

When you picture a minimum wage worker, who do you picture? Do you see a sixteen year old, a middle-aged mother, a college graduate, or even a senior citizen worker? In September of 2013, California governor Jerry Brown signed a new bill into act that would cause the California minimum wage to rise from the current $8.00 and hour to $10.00 and hour in increments over the next three years. The minimum wage rate will go up in two separate $1.00 boosts. The first will change the rate from $8.00 to $9.00 in July of 2014, and the second increase, to $10.00, in January 2016. In this paper, I will discuss, compare, and weigh the pros and cons of the minimum wage increase in California.

Minimum wage is a very controversial topic that a great deal of people have strong opinions on. Some feel that by raising minimum wage the standard of living will increase, poverty will go down, and businesses will be more efficient. Others believe that increasing minimum wage will result in an increase in poverty and unemployment. People implement many different ethical theories when producing their stance on minimum wage. The utilitarian, libertarian, and deontological ethical theories are three of the most popular ethical theories people point to when forming their stance on minimum wage. It is important to gain an understanding of these ethical theories before making an argument for or against minimum wage.

Another common argument made by those in favor of the minimum wage is that it actually helps to stimulate spending, improving overall economic conditions.[vii] The theory behind this argument is that low wage earners typically spend everything they make. Whether on necessities or luxury items, minimum wage earners are likely to spend their entire paycheck. If there were an increase in the minimum wage, the people who would receive the pay increase would turn around and spend their new money. This would help to cover the costs of the increased wages as many businesses would see an almost immediate return through increased sales. While this argument seems to make sense, it must be clarified that no empirical evidence to support this claim could be found.

In the US, President Barack Obama urges Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.25. Although some Republicans oppose to this action, overwhelming majority of Americans see that is a good idea (The Guardian, 2014). Regarding to the issue of minimum wage, there have been lots of debates for a long time. Some economists such as Milton Friedman deeply believe that minimum wage kills jobs, but some like Alan Krueger and David Card think, to some extend, it actually increased employment (The Economist, 2012). To detailedly understand the topic of the minimum wage, both sides debate of the economists on the issue should be concerned.

Huppke’s and “The Economists” articles have conflicting opinions about the argument of minimum wage. Economists’ article stays neutral on the purpose of minimum wage; “If, at a higher minimum wage, some of these low wage workers end up being unemployed, that is very destructive, but if research suggests that large numbers of workers can find jobs

When you have a job to where you have to deal with so much, but you only receiving 7.25 an hour. You always thinking to yourself that you deserve way better than date. Alabama has no minimum wage and the federal minimum of $7.25 applies in the state. The Birmingham City Council passed an ordinance Tuesday to set a minimum hourly wage in the city and increase it to $10.10 an hour by July 2017. Alabama is one of the top ten poorest states in the United States and our poverty rate is 18.7 percent. In the years of 2011 to 2013 nearly 17 percent of our people struggled to find food. In 2013, almost one million Alabamians depended on food stamps for their home. Raising minimum wage for Alabama has to happen by the year of 2018 because we all have to provide for our families in all types of ways, there would be way many more students in college, and Alabama could change for good.

People might think that minimum wage has no downside, but surprisingly it has, if someone has worked in a place for years and his wage increased but if the minimum wage increased the new-hires will have a wage that is very close to the person who spent all his years working for this place, “Wal-Mart 's $9 minimum wage has been in place for a little while now, and not everybody is happy about it. Employees who have been there for years are complaining it 's unfair that they now make not much more than someone who 's just been hired off the street, reports Bloomberg News. While some low-level managers have also gotten higher starting wages, raises are small and infrequent for those at the bottom rung -- typically between 3 and 5 percent per year, which comes out to a few dimes annually if you started at $7.25 -- so the jump to $9 wiped out years of accumulated comparative gains for some rank-and-file employees.”(DePillis, Lydia) Another downside to minimum wage is that when the minimum wage rises the unskilled workers would have less opportunities to work since the employers won’t pay that much for the unskilled and will

People everywhere are voicing out that we need to increase minimum wage, again. They say that an increase will have a minor impact on jobs but there are no facts to back them up. The impact of raising minimum wage has been studied since the beginning, and has been concluded that raising minimum wage hurts the poor, and helps the rich. Raising minimum wage takes away jobs; especially the low-skilled and young worker, keeps people on welfare, and also encourages high school students to drop out. When you look at the facts, is it really worth raising minimum wage? All credible research has come to the same conclusions, and these I will discuss with you.

The minimum wage increase has various components to it that are both are full of pro’s and cons. Regardless if you’re a supporter of one or the other, the numbers regarding the increase of minimum wage to me show two things. First and foremost, fluctuations not only affect the price of goods and services, but also the labor markets ability to increase the living standards for many living below the poverty line. On the plus side, we should see an increase, potentially, in economic stimulus, its said the more many one makes the more one spends causing a ripple effect thought the economy which benefits everyone. Furthermore, a huge benefit of the proposed increase would be a decline in turnover, as workers who are making more are undoubtedly more

Often, people tend to think that implementing minimum wage can help those vulnerable groups in society. These refer to the low-income workers, such as those from cleaning sectors and landscape industry. In these groups, their wages are not increasing fast enough to equip them with the high cost of living in Singapore, and thus the welfare of them is worrying the government. The benefit that workers can reap from minimum wage is that they are ensured to have a fixed decent wage. This is to prevent any kinds of exploitation of wages because employers may have no clear guidelines on how much they have to pay their workers. For instance, some cleaners may only earn merely $700/month. But now with the