If you have ever worked for minimum wage, I am sure you have felt as if your time was worthless. After taxes you brought home next to nothing, no matter how often you worked. That's at least how I felt when I worked for minimum wage. In high school I had nothing to pay for but a cell phone. I worked for minimum wage and it seemed like I barely could afford it. I had basically no bills and I worked around twenty hours a week, and it seemed like I couldn't save any money. I always wondered how my coworkers, who were adults, who had real things to pay for pulled it off. After reading Barbara Ehrenrech's Nickel and Dimed it really made me wonder if the current minimum wage is really high enough. …show more content…
Unfortunately the minimum wage is only $5.15/ hour while, "The living wage In 2000, amounted to $17,050 a year for a family of four, or $8.20 per hour for a full-time, year round worker." Obviously the minimum wage is not high enough to be considered the living wage. Which led me to believe that someone could not live off of the current minimum wage. This didn't make sense to me because according to the International Labor Organization one of the criteria for minimum wage calculation is the cost of living.
This made me wonder why minimum wage jobs exist? And what kinds of people are taking these jobs. Well, when I hear the phrase minimum wage job the first occupation that pops into my mind is working at a fast food restaurant flipping burgers. That doesn't seem like an intellectually involved job. And when you look at a typical minimum wage job setting such as a fast food restaurant you typically see high school students, high school dropouts, and mentally challenged people filling these job slots. The common theme would have to be a lack of education. And just because someone is uneducated does not mean
Many Americans work solely to pay for food, electricity, and housing. In response to this “nearly 30 states have raised their minimum wage to combat job loss, poverty, and economic inflation.” (http://www.pewresearch.org). This just goes to show that more than two thirds of the country are willing to raise their wages, because the local government thinks that it is absolutely necessary in order to allow people to live sustainably. States such as California have raised their wages up to as high as $15.00! Raising the minimum wage has helped many people begin to start to live healthy lives, and it provides a way for families to expend for necessities if they work at or near minimum wage,
Should the minimum wage increased to $10.10 an hour? This has increased over the years and everyone has their opinions. Those who are in favor of increasing minimum wage to $10.10 believe that more money will decrease poverty and the unemployment rate. Those who oppose the increase in the minimum wage, believe that it should not be increased and should stay the same, because it will cause businesses to close up because they are not making enough money to survive in the economy An increase in minimum wage would have to make the employees work harder to make increase sales of the business. I believe that the minimum wage should not increase to $10.10.
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.
Should the minimum wage be raised? This question is the question being asked by millions across the United States. Most people will say yes, however, an economist will most likely say no. This is a very important subject and what the people of the United States should be compelled to notice as well as take action on the minimum wage. In the United States, 3 million people make less than the federal minimum wage. Furthermore, with over 60 million people living in the lower middle class the minimum wage is not high enough. That's why the minimum wage should be raised to $15 an hour because CEO's support it as well as it presents a living wage.
There are many employees who find themselves working full-time for what the government has so generously termed the “minimum wage”. In Missouri, the minimum wage has been set at a rather appalling $7.65 per hour while in other states there are wages starting as high as $10. Though arguably the economy is not as sluggish and terrible as it once was, $7.65 per hour will not help those who have children, no college degree and debts to pay. It is not only Missouri that has minimum wage laws, but every other state in America has minimum wage laws in place. Both California and Seattle recently established a plan that would see their minimum wages rise to $15 by 2021. The question for all the other forty-eight states remains, should the minimum wage be raised?
More specifically, only about twenty-three percent of minimum wage workers live in poverty (Economics 21, screen 1). Many of the people working minimum wages are astonishingly young; a little over half are between the ages 16 to 24 (Desilver, screen 1). To make another point, sixty-four percent of those working minimum wage only work part-time (Desilver, screen 1). With this information it is easy to see that most of the minimum wage workers are young and working for experience or to start paying for their own things.
The argument for minimum wage has remained remake consistent over the years. Some people are against minimum wage and the other think minimum wage can help you in a certain way. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Unites States federal government passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The law has been amended almost every year to expand coverage of the wage floor and to increase the wage itself. Many of the fifty states have enacted their own minimum wage laws, some of them set even higher than the federal level. Minimum wage jobs don’t only help adults at hard times it help teenagers and college students. I learned that the proponents for minimum wage believe the raw value of one’s labor to a business
Have you ever thought about feeding a family and paying the necessary bills on $7.25 per hour? If you answer “no,” then think about this. With this type of salary you could not cover your rent in most parts of the United States, much less feed your family. In this day and time this feat cannot be achieved without raising the minimum wage. If our current government does not raise the minimum wage than a person earning minimum wage would need to work two or three jobs just to keep up with inflation.
Should minimum wage be increased? Passage one strongly supports and gives details on why minimum wage should be raised. Many workers are asking for a national minimum wage increase to $15 per hour, while others say that a higher minimum wage will stifle business and ultimately hurt the economy. So, should the minimum wage be increased or not? The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938 during the Great Depression under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was initially set at $0.25 per hour and has been increased by Congress 22 times, most recently in 2009 when it went from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour. 29 states plus the District of Columbia (DC) have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage. 2,561,000 workers earn the federal minimum wage or below.
“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.”
It has been said that the minimum wage pay is meant to be an entry level position and that person is supposed to advance. But what is to say the employer is even offering a performance or time worked increase for the staff. And when you think about the average minimum wage worker you think of a teenage high school student just entering the workforce. They live at home with their parents still and they are being supported by their parents. This job is only for extra money to help pay for their nights out with their friends. The reality is that this is not the case for the average minim wage worker, they
"No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty."
Low minimum wages affects everyday families and lives, more than the average person would think. A small minimum wage could have an very small effect on someone’s life, such as not being able to afford a new pair of boots or that new phone, contradictory to this low wages could also have a very serious effect on someone’s life . Meaning that a parent or single individual could not support their family because a lack of income, it could also mean the difference of living under a safe roof, or living in the streets. In 2016 alone, 40.6 million people in the United States
Minimum wages go all the way back to 1938, during the great depression, when the stock market crash and bank loan were failing. Families need income of some type, were they wanted to make it fair were individual could get pay the same without a college degree. I am going to start off with a little about minimum wages history and how this could help our Economic.
Today "the federal minimum wage" is $7.25 per hour since July 24, 2009. It has failed to keep up with inflation. The