“Of course, nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages. … And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.” -–President Obama, State of the Union address, Jan. 20, 2015
President Barack Obama is renewing his call to raise the minimum wage to $10.10. During a speech at a manufacturing plant, President Obama proclaimed, "We should be raising the minimum wage to make sure that more workers who have been working full-time shouldn't be living in poverty...". He also called for a wage increase for tipped
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This means that all tips are placed in a “pool” that is then distributed amongst each staff member at the end of the shift. Also, restaurants have to pay credit card processing fees. Some restaurants will take a small percentage out of the waiter’s tip to balance out these fees. The waiter still gets a high percentage of the tip but out of that $20 tip, the waitress may only get between $5 and $10 out of it. There are many things that alter a tip worker’s paycheck. A simple wage increase could make a huge difference in how much money they take home each week.
Tip workers produce more than what they are paid for, which leads into the minimum wage effects on production. However, regular should not get a pay increase. Employers will have to pay workers more money for the same job, price adjustments will be made to accommodate the wage increases. Employees will be expected to produce more. For jobs that already require a lot of work, this could be very troublesome. Wages have an effect on production. For any job, an increase in pay means the job performance and contributions outweigh the current salary. If employers do not feel as though the increase is warranted, they may expect more from their employees. Also, employees will be fired faster because employers may feel as though workers are being overly compensated for their jobs. Some companies may also retaliate against the wage increases by
Opposers argue that waiters and waitresses that are tipped, certainly do not need a wage increase; they believe that the server’s income from tips tremendously outweigh their salary which can be exceptionally untrue. “A server commonly works at a wage lower than minimum wage, sometimes as low as $2.13, and the tips do not always guarantee a steady income” (www.dol.gov). Nearly 10% of the United States work force works in a restaurant related business of some kind. Giving a higher paycheck to these workers would help them out
Although America is known as the richest country in the world, 43 million of its citizens are in poverty. Unfortunately, some of them work full time, yet are still in poverty due to the low minimum wage (“Should We Raise”). In 1928, the first federal minimum wage of 25 cents per hour was set by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to prevent workers from being underpaid. Since 2009, the federal minimum wage has been $7.25 (Smith). The age old debate of whether or not to raise it is still going on in the US. The federal minimum wage should be increased to keep up with inflation, help support the poor, and stimulate the economy.
What’s in it to lose? Nothing because by doing so it can help to reduce the government welfare spending at the same time helping someone to at least make ends meet. Therefore, raising the minimum wage will help people to take of their family basic needs such as good nutritious food, instead of the unhealthy food, health assurance for them to go to the doctor and a place to stay. People that work minimum wages not always able to afford their basic needs. They sometimes prone to sickness because of their unhealthy lifestyle and with no health assurance they won’t be able to afford to go the doctor or their
An increase of a couple of dollars per hour or more in the minimum wage could make huge improvements in the difficult existence of the working poor, perhaps allowing them to exit the debt treadmill and stand a better chance of eventually rising into a revitalized middle-class. Researchers at the White House Council of Economic Advisors found that an increase to $10.10 an hour would raise wages for 28 million Americans about nine million of those due to the ripple effect. “According to a 2015 report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a worker must earn at least $15.50 an hour to be able to afford to rent a modest one-bedroom apartment, and $19.35 for a two-bedroom unit.”
minimum wages are struggling to live on a salary that is below the poverty threshold. In 2012, the U.S census posted that in a family of three; their income is 18,552, (U.S Census). In most case, one member of the family is working on a minimum wage salary which is below 18,552, (U.S. Dept. of Labor). It has been almost a five years since congress has raised the minimum wage (Huff Post). Throughout my argument, I will share my thoughts as wells as facts on why congress should agree to raise the minimum wage. We
For many years, there has been an ongoing and strong debate in the United States on whether or not minimum wage should be raised from $7.25 an hour to over $10.00 an hour. Minimum wage is the lowest amount a company or employer can pay their employees. Many argue that the benefits of raising minimum wage surpass the negatives, yet many also disagree. But as a whole, the benefits of a higher minimum wage clearly outweigh the costs that come with it. Minimum wage should be raised because it would increase economic activity, reduce poverty levels, and allow for less government spending.
Which would raise it six dollars and twenty five cents. Which amounts to fifteen dollars an hour, which would equate for a full time worker to thirty one thousand dollars a year. A proponent of the minimum wage increase is Thomas Perez, who said “Workers are feeling like they have nothing left to lose” He works as an analyst for the National Employment Law Project, which aims at helping the working class of people. It ends by talking about Obama and his goal of raising the minimum wage to nine dollars an hour, as well as have it follow the consumer index so it would raise periodically Conversely in Arthur Brooks article he stipulates that President Obama neglects the poor. He reasons this by formulating research which he gives that says our current President only talks about the poor class on fourth of the time, while others such as former President Ronald Reagan talked about the poor in his speeches two thirds of the time. Looking at both these articles gives the notion that our President has agreed with raising the minimum wage. Although according to Brook's article he hasn't talked nearly as much about the poor class as other Presidents. It seems important to talk about this class of people since they will be the ones most affected by this social, and economic issue. Seeing the results of just talking about something you can see how effective it is in changing it. Without the
"No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty."
“Of course, nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages. … And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it. If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.”
"If we took away the minimum wage, we could wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at every possible skill level."
"No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty."
It puts a big portion of the employees' expected minimum wage at the mercy of everday customers. You can never be one hundred percent sure if a customer will tip or not, even if you did provide excellent service. This is because there are various different factors that go into a customer's decision on how much to tip, if at all. These factors include the individual
The customer typically decides how much tipped workers will receive since customer take on the role of the manager while the tipped worker is the employee. The amount of the tip is contingent upon the quality of
A portion of jobs affected by a minimum wage hike will inevitably go to robots instead of humans. Instead of hiring workers, businesses will invest in technology that is capable of doing tasks that would otherwise be done by human workers, such as cashiering at fast food restaurants and other establishments. In the long run, businesses that invest in technology sophisticated enough to perform these types of jobs will face lower costs than hiring actual workers. This is primarily because they will not have to be concerned about inputs such as wages and benefits given to workers and filing payroll taxes.
The idea of having a federal minimum wage is a good one. The idea is to protect low and unskilled workers from discrimination and allow all 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 per hour. President Barack Obama made this proposal during his annual State of the Union Address on January 28, and following this there were many hot debates about it. The debates focused not only on the advantages and the disadvantages of increasing the minimum wage, but also the alternatives to increasing it.