The Minimum Wage: To Raise or Not To Raise?
This article is addressing to the problem low-wage workers are facing with the rate of minimum wage in the United States. The question here is whether or not the minimum wage should be increased. There are many factors that must be considered in order to answer this question and at the same time understand the “trade-off” and risks increasing the minimum wage can result in for the businesses analyzing the basic principles of economics.
For instance, if the minimum wage increases, businesses will be forced to react and adapt to the reformed budget situations they would face. Businesses must produce profits in order to function correctly and be lucrative, but in the case minimum wage is raised; either the business increases the price of the commodities or reduces its expenditures. By raising the price of a commodity the business encounters a problem, as the relation between demand and supply is negative, meaning that if the price for a specific commodity increases the demand for that commodity will eventually decreases, the business will reduce its profitable characteristic because consumers
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The implementation of technology for a business is the perfect alternative for maximizing profits by minimizing costs of production. As technology does not require a wage payment and can have limitless performance at work, machines can easily replace a large percentage of personnel as hand labour is not as efficient as the work a machine can do compare to a single person. This is why technology is a more profitable way of production, reducing the total costs in order for the firm to maximize productivity at the lowest possible cost, resulting in a profitable
What kind of pay would you demand if you were expected to clean dirty toilets, pick up germy trash, and deal with customers who are nasty, rude and disrespectful to you while you are serving them? Would you do it for three dollars an hour? What about seven or eight dollars an hour? Well, many minimum wage jobs involve such duties as these. However, the minimum wage here in Illinois is only $8.25 per hour (US Dept. of Labor, 2014). In Indiana, the state where I work, it is a dollar less than that (US Dept. of Labor, 2014). The following information will discuss reasons why this wage should be increased and the benefits that accompany an increase for all of us regardless to whether we earn the minimum wage or a higher a wage.
There has been many conversations about what the positive impacts can come to America 's lowest income workers as a result of an increase in the minimum wage, and there has also been equally as many discussions over the negative effects the increase can have on similar people. This paper’s purpose is to combine each viewpoint and objectively analyze the arguments for and against an increase in the minimum wage. I will first discuss the benefits for an increase, then the disadvantages, and in the last paragraph, I will
The current minimum wage is $7.25, which equals two gallons of milk, one fast food meal or two gallons of gas. Can you imagine yourself working 12-hours a day and only having enough money to pay for rent and put food on the table for your family? With working all those long hours, you can barely afford to pay your utility bills and after that you don’t have enough money or time for luxuries like clothing or vacation. You have no savings as matter of fact, you are in a huge debt and you are living paycheck to paycheck. This is the story of millions of American worker, who are employed on minimum wage. The shocking part about this story is that million of Americans would be saved from this poverty life, if the American government raises the minimum wage. This would not only help the workers, but also the economy because raising the minimum wage would put extra money in the pocket of minimum wage worker and extra spending would help restore consumer spending.
This paper will explore the pros and cons of raising the current minimum wage to $15.00. It will start with the history and reasons for the minimum wage. It will cite the positive aspects for raising it, as well as the negative consequences of that action. It will then touch on actual cases presently, within the U.S. economy. Finally, I will present my conclusion.
“When we talk about the kind of folks whose lives will be made better by raising the minimum wage, we 're not talking about a couple teenagers earning extra spending money to supplement their allowance. We 're talking about providers and breadwinners. Working Americans with bills to pay and mouths to feed” (Perez 2015). Minimum wage is a problem to America because some people cannot live off it and some people say businesses should not pay extra. Should the minimum wage be raised ? “A native of Detroit, Cecil Euseary, 52, moved to Holland, Michigan in 2007, after his mother died — he had to get out of town. He moved back to Detroit in 2014.He works at Burger King working minimum wage there. He can only get about 25 hours of work per week at Burger King. Cecil has been active in the "D15" campaign to increase the minimum wage in Detroit to $15 per hour. He once met with U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, when he was visiting Detroit. "It 's hard. If it weren 't for my god mom — this is her house; I get a room upstairs — if it weren 't for her, I don 't know what," Cecil says. "I 'd probably be out on the street, in a shelter." (Euseary 2014). The minimum wage should be raised from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour because if you raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour it would lift people out of poverty, it would increase the federal purchasing power and not as many families struggling to make ends meet. Here’s another story, Enriqueta works as a housekeeper for minimum wage in the
Minimum wage is a highly controversial topic in the U.S. everyone would like to be paid a little bit more but do people even stop for a second and think about the consequences of raising pay. Economic failure, poverty increase, housing price increase, layoff increase, and hour decrease. There are also many more terrible things that are country can't handle if we were to raise the minimum wage.
Should minimum wage in the United States increase? This is a challenging issue in politics today. According to Alan B. Krueger, the minimum wage, at the federal level is $7.25 and has been since 2009 (par. 1). State governments take it in their own hands and raise the minimum wage their selves (Krueger, par. 4). Congress is debating if it is necessary for the entire country to raise the minimum to $10.10 and eventually somewhere between $12.00 and $15.00 (Krueger, par. 2). But, there is an inconsistency in this topic; this is whether the minimum wage should stay the same or if it should be raised by the federal government. This inconsistency has to do with a small group in the United States that has authority over policy making, which is different
In today's society it's expensive to live in America and even getting day by day is very difficult if you are living on minimum wage, of course it's more difficult for some people than others depending on their situation and their living conditions. America should raise minimum wage because it would make things easier for people who are struggling. A higher minimum wage not only increases workers’ incomes, it will also be good for our economy. A quarter of people working minimum wage are at least raising one child. This change will help a lot of people it would make our country a better place.
The topic on whether the minimum wage should be increased our untouched has been a hot topic in the media and political scene lately. Both the republicans and democrats have spent some big bucks lobbying their insights on the matter. There has been a lot of subjective and objective arguments that are reasonable on both the pros and cons of increasing our national minimum wage. To add to the drama associated with this topic, President Obama endorsed a bill proposing a nearly 40% rise from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour. The President has been campaigning around the country ever since his State of the Union address, pushing congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Many say this is too high due to the costs of enacting such an increase, and many say this is a little low due to the increased cost of living. After looking into both sides of this debate, I realize that overall it would be better for the well-being of our nation to increase the minimum wage due to the short term and long term costs that an increase of the minimum wage could lead to. In terms of helping out the lower class and poor citizens of the United States, increasing the minimum wage level is not the answer.
Minimum wage is an ongoing debate in the United States. There are some people who think that it should be raised to a higher rate and others who think that it should not. There are many different pros and cons with raising minimum wage. Minimum wage is at a balanced rate that should not be raised due to lack of skill, low education, and economic problems.
What if a 16 year old was making $18,000 a year after taxes, working only 25 hours a week? Most likely you would expect that teenager to have a pretty prestigious job at such a young age. However that is not the case, if the minimum wage is raised to $15 an hour, a 16 year old could make $18,000 yearly working only 25 hours a week at McDonalds. Now for teenagers that have goals for college or a car, that would money to set aside for the future, however most 16 year olds do not have those goals in mind yet, so that extra money turns into wasted money. As of February 2016 the minimum wage ranges anywhere from $7.25-$10 across the United States. Florida’s rate is at $8.05 an hour, however some believe the minimum wage should be raised to $15 an hour in all states(Raise).” People working in minimum wage jobs may feel as if this $7 bump would be a great advantage to them, but there are possible negative results of doing this too. As a manager of a restaurant where employees start at minimum wage, I can only imagine the effects our company would feel. Raising the minimum wage is not the solution to helping people out of poverty , I feel it will only be enabling them to stay in the same position they are in and give less motivation for teens to further their generation. Increasing the minimum wage will harm businesses and will decrease the motivation to get a further education.
U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has said, “It is a national disgrace that millions of full-time workers are living in poverty and millions more are forced to work two or three jobs just to pay their bills” (Wolf 1). Sanders has said this frequently and is referring to the drastic amount of Americans who are currently struggling, despite already having a job. The issue of whether or not to raise the minimum wage in America has been a widely discussed topic for years. Minimum wage refers to the smallest amount of money a worker can legally be paid in the U.S. It was first signed into law in 1938 by President Franklin Roosevelt in order to keep workers out of poverty and as it stands, the current federal minimum wage in
This paper gives an insight on the debate whether the minimum wage should be raised to $10 an hour or not in the United States. There is a big debate in the United States regarding as to whether the minimum wage should be raised to $10 per hour, but before we go into details of the debate lets first understand what is meant by a minimum wage and how did it come into existence. A minimum wage is the lowest wage that is paid to workers by their employers, and the government legally sets it. A minimum wage is a price floor, workers are not allowed to sale their services below price, and the government legally sets the price (Neumark et al 2008). Although the minimum wage is put into effect in jurisdictions, there exist different opinions
In America, the current minimum wage sits at $7.25 an hour, but as the cost of living has gone up, the amount paid to some of America’s hardest workers has not. This has left many people working several minimum wage jobs in order to try and get by. This struggle to make it paycheck to paycheck has created an incredibly large economic gap between the rich and poor, something that has largely contributed to the fight for fifteen. With many Americans sitting in the low to middle class demographic, there is plenty of outcry and support for the minimum wage to be raised from $7.25 an hour to anywhere from $10.10 to $15 an hour depending on the city and that city’s specific cost of living. This issue, as most issues do, has pinned many people against each other; some are all for this much needed raise in minimum wage, after all, this raise would help out most of America’s workers. On the other hand however, the consequences of this drastic raise can only be speculated about since worker’s pay hasn’t really been messed with since the late sixties. While there are good points in favor of raising minimum wage such as, allowing people to live more comfortably, and getting people off of public assistance programs, there are also the negative aspects about this pending public policy. Some of these cons are a raise in prices, a loss of jobs or hours, and the cutting out of young teenage workers from the job force. Many cities plan on raising minimum wage over the
The national minimum wage is the hourly rate below which adult workers in most sectors of the economy work. The national minimum wage is a policy (known in the UK) which is the amount of money set by the government known as pay commission e.g. the age of 16-22 and over get different pay raise. Someone who is 16 and above are able to get their national insurance number and be able to work for their earning of £3.75 an hour. Above that have with more experience you get earnings of £4.83 - £5.80 and over. Low pay commission can cause a lack of access to the labour market resulting is discrimination. The National Minimum Wage is the minimum pay per hour almost all workers are entitled to by law. They can check if they’re getting the minimum wage