Raising The Minimum Wage

Raise the minimum wage: In the United States, studies show that women tend to make up a disproportionate share of low-wage workers. In the field of education, men tends to go more to STEM than women and that also leads to high paying jobs for men. If we raise the minimum wage, this will help hardworking women to support their families. Approximately, women made up two-thirds of all minimum-wage workers in 2012. With the current federal minimum wage i.e. $7.25 per hour, someone working full time, only earn $15,080 a year round. People working full time with minimum wage is still below the poverty threshold for any family with children and single person is also not far above the poverty line. So, increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would help increase the wages for about 15 million women, which will help close the gender wage gap.

On June 16, 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced a plan to help raise the United States out of the Great Depression. At the heart of this plan was the idea that wages must be set and fair. “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”(Roosevelt) This plan became the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set the Federal Minimum wage. Minimum wage has increased, slowly, over the years, but has not kept up with its intended purpose. Raising the federal minimum wage to a "fair living wage" level will improve the lives of the working poor, without adverse economic consequences.

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.

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

America is a place where the people strive to create equal opportunities in every avenue of life. Every American should have unrestricted access to the options presented before them, allowing them to pursue their life goals and die happy deaths. However, this principle only stands for access to options, it has nothing to do with the advantages and disadvantages of said choices. The American dream is the idea that if you work hard enough, persevere, and really believe in yourself, good things will come. Drastically raising the minimum wage goes against all of those principles, rewarding lethargic actions and poor life choices. Raising the minimum wage to $15 will do more harm than good for middle class americans by decreasing the value of the money in their pockets, driving out big companies, and generally increasing unemployment.

With the minimum wage set at $7.25 dollars per hour many people are struggling to make do. The average cost of living in America is too much for people, who make minimum wage, to make ends meet. It’s thought that raising the minimum wage will have a negative effect on the unemployment rate but there has been no evidence of that. The value of the minimum wage has dropped immensely since 1960. Raising the minimum wage will be beneficial to America and its citizens. In 1968 the minimum wage was equal to $10.74 today. That means in 50 years the purchasing power of the minimum wage has diminished. From the end of WWII upto 1968 minimum wage was on pace with the average worker productivity rate. If this trend was true from 1968 to today and worker

Minimum wage is the minimum hourly wage an employee can be paid from their employer. The federal minimum wage is set at seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour in the state of Mississippi. Some states have chosen to raise their minimum wage higher than federal requires. San Francisco, CA, has the highest minimum wage fixed at ten dollars and fifty-five cents. Even though, some states have a higher minimum wage than others. The Fair Labor Standards Act entails every employee to be paid the same amount. If minimum wage was to be raised, it would have advantages and disadvantages.

It's still a relatively new topic, minimum wage. Introduced in 1938, by President Franklin Roosevelt, it was a part of the creation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This act established “minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor standards affecting full-time and part-time workers.”(United States Department of Labor). At the present time of 1938, 25￠was quite a significant amount of money. However, now, the federal minimum wage has been set at $7.25 by President Obama in 2009. Within the past seventy years, many states have desired to raise their own minimum wage higher than that of the federal minimum. Presently, twenty-nine states have elected to pay their workers more rather than giving them the short-end of the stick.

Political analyst and civil rights activist Benjamin Todd once said: “No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage.” Today, I have chosen to speak on the controversial topic of whether or not the United States should raise the federal minimum wage.

A very controversial yet interesting issue today in the United States is minimum wage if it should be increased or not. While some want to raise minimum wage to the living wage, minimum wage should not be raised because it increases low skilled worker unemployment, increases the Cost of goods/services,and Cuts back on work hours.

In the USA thousands of employees live under the poverty line while working full time jobs

During the 2008 Global Recession, the employment rate for young adults and low skilled workers disproportionately, and once the recession had eased the employment gap based on education worsened significantly. In 2016 Presidential election raising the minimum wage became a key policy issue for the Democratic Party to help give those workers who were hit the hardest during the recession a much needed income boost. During the 2016 Democratic National Convention the Democrats agreed to add a $15 minimum wage into the party’s platform, taking a pivotal step sought by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and labor Unions. When it comes to raising the minimum wage and what it would do to U.S. employment, prices and productivity. Economists are willing

Raising the minimum wage price would skyrocket school attendance levels and decrease high school dropout rates. A 2014 study found that raising the California minimum wage to $13 an hour would cause the incomes of 7.5 million families to increase, meaning fewer families would live in poverty. This means that teens who live in poverty are two times more likely to miss three-plus days of school per month compared to those who do not miss school. So overall, because of the rise of the minimum wage, it caused families to come out of poverty. This also means that there would be a lower amount of children missing/skipping school. Studies also found that "recent experimental studies show that increasing income can improve school performance." This

Although there is a great deal of disagreement about how to regulate the minimum wage in America, statistics indicate that the minimum wage has not been keeping pace with inflation. “The federal minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour and hasn’t been raised in three years. But a raise is much more overdue than that. If we look at the minimum wage 44 years ago, and simply adjust it for inflation, it would be more than $10 today.” However, there is tremendous resistance to raising the minimum wage, because of the belief that to improve the economic recovery, workers must be ‘cheap’ to encourage businesses to buy more labor. According to classical economic theory, as supply increases in the form of unemployed labor, labor prices should be allowed

The minimum wage has grown twenty two times since it was first introduced in 1938.