Essay The Living Wage Movement

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

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

In more recent history, one of the first local victories in the living wage movement took place in the early 1990s. In Baltimore, over fifty churches approached the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees to join in creating an organization of churches, labor union members, and low-wage service workers (William). The churches decided to join together for this cause because they saw first hand how low- wage workers were turning food stamps, publicly financed health care, and private assistance from churches. They saw an increase in the use of their soup kitchens and pantries by those who did, in fact, have a job. The churches concluded that minimum wage was not a just wage. This minimum wage no benefit jobs were no helping

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).

The City of Los Angeles passed a living wage ordinance that resulted in headaches for many employers. It also provided the opportunity for a number of potential plaintiffs to consider taking their employers to court for failing to provide said living wage (including overtime pay) that is required according to the new living wage ordinance as well as California labor laws pertaining to overtime pay in the state.

This is would be incredible motivating factor for many people who find them in the service sector today. Low unemployment numbers are always good news for any state or national politician. Many smaller businesses believe in a higher wage because they can begin to compete with larger companies. If a larger company continues to pay employees a lower and unlivable wage, that companies reputation can hurt and shareholders in stock might find that hurtful to their dividends. But if employees find the workplace that pays a livable wage and encourages benefits for all employees, the public reputation is

Raising wages would affect the individual worker by improving their lives and standard of living. Macroeconomics is the part of economics concerned with large scale or general economic factors, such as interest rates and national productivity. A twenty five percent raise in minimum wage, would increase gross domestic product and spur the economy. Increasing the minimum wage by 25%, to nine dollars, will improve the lives of many Americans/the standard of living, and spur economic growth. Economist Jared Bernstein who is the economic adviser for vice President Joe Biden says,” An increase is not a luxury or 'beer money' anymore. There are too many people who depend on a low-wage job to meet their family budget that this increase is needed, not

As the presidential election approaches, topics like whether illegal immigrants are taking American jobs and rising the minimum wage have frequently surfaced on the front page of our daily newspaper and dominated our social media feeds. While these issues have numerous political implications, the center of the discussion is essentially about labor which leads to production, money, and driving the economy. Looking at labor, it is really important to examine labor supply because it shows the number of people willing and able to work in a particular job for a given amount of money, or wage. The number of people willing to work influences how much the economy can produce in terms of physical products and nontangible services like teaching. A labor supply curve is drawing out and connecting

“We need to raise the minimum wage to the point where the lowest-paid worker can afford their basic needs.’(David Cooper). Many people have argued that raising the minimum wage from $7.50 an hour to $10.10 would hurt America’s economy and would cause companies to go out of business and employees to be fired. However, increasing the minimum wage would actually benefit America’s economy by boosting economic activity. This would cause more people to find jobs and decrease the amount of people living in poverty.

As a teenager, getting hired for a minimum wage paying job meant you'd finally be earning your own money to put into savings to use as you please. For some minimum wage earners, this is not the case, given that they are a single parent without education living paycheck to paycheck. These people are the citizens fighting for an income of $15/hour. This issue has split the country in two, with arising issues such as the effect on the economy after the pay raise and if $15 is asking too much for such a basic skill level job, making it obvious that it is time for a change. Although minimum wage is a low income for an individual trying to raise a family, "this is where the harsh reality sets in: minimum wage jobs are not intended to enable people to raise a family of five on", and for that reason and many more, the minimum wage should not be raised to $15/hour (Hawkins).

At the present time, the current minimum wage is not prominent enough to allow employees to afford their basic everyday essentials. According to an anonymous advocate for raising the minimum wage, "66% of US workers earning less than $10 an hour report that they 'just meet' or 'don't even have enough to meet' their basic living expenses"' ("Website: Minimum Wage – ProCon" 36) One can infer from this piece of evidence, that a whopping more than half of the US employees suffer from the poor earning in jobs. This disregard for worker's life necessities is

The United States was established on the principle that all men were created equal yet in the progressive era, people were lactating the basic needs needed to survive. A Living Wage by John A. Ryan highlights the fact that the poor people were not able to live a sustainable life on the income they were receiving. A living wage also known as minimum wage is the lowest amount of pay workers can receive. There was a great importance of a minimum wage because it would be one aspect of a person’s life that would affect other areas, it would lift the workers out of poverty so the size of the lower class and population of people living in the slums would decrease while the middle class would increase.

Today we live in a society that tells us what and when we can do it, with the complex of living in the United States which is supposed to be the land of the free. The cost of living now these days have put those who only make minimum wage in poverty stricken situations, which now they have no choice but to depend on the government to live. We either have to lower the cost of living so that people can live a somewhat sustainable life, or raise the minimum wage so that we can afford the cost of living that is provided to us.