preview

Should The Minimum Wage Be Abolished

Decent Essays

The Minimum Wage is a Death Sentence In our modern day economy over four million americans are paid the federal minimum wage of seven dollars and twenty-five cents. People living on the federal minimum wage can attest to the fact that it is not really living, it is more a game of surviving. While the top twenty percent of americans hold over eighty-five percent of wealth the remaining eighty percent of us are left with only fifteen percent of the wealth to fight for. It is not fair for there to be a person spending lavishly while there is another struggling to live. The minimum wage should be raised to fifteen dollars an hour, because it clears people’s worries of financial instability, creates a larger middle class, and makes the minimum …show more content…

That seems reasonable considering that the economic function of a country is a very fragile thing to mess with. Completely changing the economic dynamic could very well be lethal to the country. Ultimately the real goal is to raise the minimum wage to a point where everyone is living comfortably with no fear of financial instability. This could come into action by gradually closing the gaps between the social classes. To ease the fear of a decimated economy, it would be completely acceptable to gradually increase the minimum wage over the course of three- five years from seven dollars and twenty five cents to fifteen dollars. By doing this the American economy would not be suffering such a significant loss all at once, but would gradually change to be able to heal in between each …show more content…

As Robert Reich says in his novel Save Capitalism “ For three decades after World War II, America created the largest middle class the world had ever seen. During those years the earnings of the typical American worker doubled, just as the size of the American economy doubled,”(20). That is an amazing statistic, because when the economy doubled so did the average income, as it should. Then Reich continues to discuss what our modern day economy has evolved to “Over the last thirty years, by contrast, the size of the economy doubled again but the earnings of the typical American went nowhere,”(21). Now that does not seem to add up. If the economy doubled again and the peoples’ earnings did not go up, than where did that money go? The answer is simple, the money is in the hands of that twenty percent of people who own eighty-five percent of the assets. The solution is simple, it would be logical to try and imitate the economic balance from the time period after World War II to recreate the greater percentage of people living in the middle

Get Access