The Effects Of A Living Wage And Why Profitable Organizations Should Not Be Required Essay

Living or subsistence wage is amount of income needed to maintain basic standard of living. Theoretically, this wage should bring people out of poverty if implemented. The real take home wage for most workers are far below this ‘utopic’ living wage. Absence of living wage for most workers has been recognized as a contributing factor to the difficult task of upward social mobility with resultant diminishing equality of opportunity and relative poverty for most workers in this country today. The concept of working poor is born out of this dystopic social stratification. The threat this and other social determinant factors posed to the realization of the lofty goal of ‘American Dream’ are the subject of this paper.

Ira Knight, who is an author of article “Let’s Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage”, expresses an opinion that increasing the minimum wage would help all struggling workers and at the same time improve U.S economy. On the other side, Janice Steele in her article “Keep the Minimum Wage Where It Is” argues that raising the minimum wage would have bad effects on workers, consumers and small businesses. Ira Knight’s article seems to be the stronger of the two positions because her arguments are based on several recent studies, and last but not least, she had a personal experience with the minimum wage job.

There is an old cliché that say “the more money you make, the more you spend.” How accurate is this statement? What effects does wage increases, have on inflation? Lately the topic of discussion conveys the matter of minimum wage increases sparking an increase the cost of living. The individuals who would not receive pay raises; but will be affected by cost of living increases as well as labor costs, do not want to see the wages go up. However there are people scrambling to survive on minimum wage or slightly more, while other individuals struggle to feed their families every month. The other side of the debate is the wealthier population feels the lower income population needs work harder to move up the corporate ladder in order to earn more money. While the individuals themselves feel they should be making more money for the work they currently do and services they provide. In this paper, I will cover subject matter pertaining to the many different aspects that come along with wage increases. After analysis of all of the information the choice will be made whether to side with wage increases based on the opinions of individuals on both sides of the argument. Also I will highlight what will be best for the economy and in my opinion what is best for the people.

The minimum wage is one of the most controversial issues on our country, which is United States has been facing last ten years. There have been never ending debates over this issue until the government, company, and others party stand together, and raise the minimum wage throughout the nations. There are communities that believe raise the minimum wage has negative impact of every sector of the country. Other communities have different beliefs over the issue, raising the minimum wage helps the poor people, and would help not hurt our economy.

A living wage can at least assure that a worker is being paid for basic requirements like housing, food, transportation which would help in their work and health care. According to the definition which states that the normal living wage should be good enough that not more than even 30% of his/her pay needs to be spent on living. But full-time workers were being paid the current minimum wage which would lead to incomes below the living wage in most of the areas in the country. In economical terms, that means that if a person is a full-time employee supporting his/her family of four on this current minimum wage, his/her household income would be 7000$ which is far below the poverty line. Campaigners who were in favor of raising the minimum wage to a living wage argue that doing this would give employees and their families the best chance to come out of debts and poverty stricken in the country. As an large number of employees take on lower wage work, poverty in the United States has increased: In 2005, 12.6% of Americans lived in poverty, compared to 15.7% this year (almost 50 million citizens)–the highest rate of poverty since 1965. Raising the minimum wage to a living wage would hopefully help to reverse this

"Los Angeles lawmakers Tuesday voted to boost the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, the largest city to try to help its lowest-paid workers survive amid the nation's growing income inequality."

While I think that the minimum wage should be raised to $15.00 an hour, Mark Perry, a scholar at AEI and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan 's Flint campus, argues “Seattle’s new minimum wage law takes effect April 1 but is already leading to restaurant closings and job losses” (Perry). Perry wants us to know that the Seattle’s new minimum wage law is “a government-mandated wage floor that guarantees reduced employment opportunities for many workers,” and increasing the minimum wage will surely leads to small business closing and job losses (Perry). However, what he said is erroneous, and a recent report written by Michael Hiltzik, an American columnist and reporter, won a beat reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1999 and won a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in 2004, also validated this statement.

How come lets say in this state you get paid $3.00 and at a different state but same job you get paid 8.00$. It's not fair that people get paid more in different states for the same job.

The United States of America has been known to be the land of opportunities for centuries; however, times have changed. While some can find great success in America, these are the lucky few, others have to face the struggles of the everyday living in the United States. There are multiple issues with the overall United states, such as the government, welfare programs, and the American economy; there are also problems with the people who live in the United States. The lifestyle of some Americans is also a large problem. People in the United States are very self centered as a whole, especially the upper class and upper middle class of Americans. Without change, little can be done to help American grow and prosper to become a great nation. The

The United States’ minimum wage has been a concerning issue amongst the low wage earners because of the amount they earn is not enough for them to live on their own. Therefore causing the citizens who earn minimum wage to have an impossible time finding a place to stay and expenses for daily survival. Increasing the minimum wage will solve the issues that the minimum wage earners make, thus increasing the chances of survival for the entire population. Inflation is one of the reasons why minimum wage is a big issue, the minimum wage has not been keeping up with inflation at all causing things that would regularly be cheap to be more costly than it used to be. There are people who are against the raise of the minimum wage and may say that there will be an increase between of unemployment rate between the younger people because of the fact

In 1930 the United States passed a federal law controlling minimum wage. This has led to random increases in minimum wages. For more than a century minimum wage has been a key factor in public policy. Minimum wages were first used to prove against the idea of American factories being “sweatshops” (Josh Barro 01). Over time the minimum wage level has risen and fallen do to the progress of the economy. The amount of money earned from a minimum wage salary today is thought to not be enough to live a regular life (. "Four States Vote to Raise Minimum Wage." 01).

As of 2009, the federal minimum wage established by U.S. Labor Law is of $7.25 per hour- income that is not enough to cover the expenses of an individual or family and therefore creates numerous economic and politic controversies. The inability to keep up with paying the bills and housing, spending money on healthcare and childcare- created a society of marginalized groups of people who face troubling barriers to opportunity and development. Consequently, a satisfactory standard of living can be achieved by implementing a living wage, which theoretically allows the employees to afford decent shelter, food, and other everyday essentials.

"No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage. In fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty."

The living wage movement is an economic reform movement that has become one of the most important public policy issues that has come up within the last 10 years. Although there is no single definition, it is often defined as an hourly salary that allows working families of four to have an income that is above the federal poverty line. This means that the livable wage laws often stipulate that hourly wages should be two to three times above the federal Mininum wage. However, unlike the Mininum wage, the living wage has so far only been enacted on the county and city level. Cities and counties enforce the living wage for companies that have contracts with their respective cities and counties, receive subsidies

Congress enacted the federal minimum wage in 1938, during the Great Depression. Congress had two goals; keeping workers away from poverty and boosting consumer spending for economic recovery. Today, there is a debate, whether we should increase the minimum wage again. Increasing the minimum wage is useful for several reasons. First, the current minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation. Second, a higher income level reduces employee turnover and increases efficiency and ultimately, raising the minimum wage does not reduce employment. Even with high unemployment rates, the minimum wage is useful for the economy.