Some people making fifteen dollars an hour make ends meet by receiving government benefits in the form of food stamps and other subsidies. Some assert that this essentially means government have enabled businesses to pay less and keep more for their bottom lines resulting in subsidized corporate profits and people more dependent of government. The major problem we have with regards to food stamps supplementing people’s wages is that these companies are being paid off by the government. They are getting enormous subsidies from the federal government in the form of food stamps and there are two ways that I have researched that can correct that in terms of wages is that the first way you can correct that would be with a measure like the minimum
“The Economic Policy Institute recently reviwed dozens of studies of what constitutes a “living wage” and came up with an average figure of $30,000 a year for a family of one adult and two children, which amounts to a wage of $14 an hour.” (213). According to Ehrenreich, about 60 percent of American workers earn less than $14 per hour. In all of places where Ehrenreich worked paid seven dollars or less per hour, which means those of people who work in those place cannot even afford to have some essentials services such as health insurance and telephone. Since they cannot even struggle to get out, politicians could takee an action; however, they didn't do any works. “The Democrats are not eager to find flaws in the period of “unprecedented prosperity” they take credit for; the Republicans have lost interest in the poor now that “welfare-as-we-know-it” has ended.” (217). And, they also had a catastrophic error. “In fact, very little is known about the fate of former welfare recipients because the 1996 welfare reform legislation bithely failed to incude any provision for monitoring their postwelfare economic condition.” (217). Congressmen need to read this book to realize the problem, and not satisfy themselves by ignoring failures because they have
Florida’s minimum wage (for example) is insufficient for even a single adult living alone to live off of. 13% of married couples with children under 18 and 42% of single parents have to use food stamps for assistance. Not that having to rely on food stamps is a bad thing, it’s only that those who have to use food stamps are at a disadvantage in the workplace and could use a little bit of help to ensure they can take care of their families.Many people of the community have to rely on welfare and a minimum wage increase would help immensely. Many people of the states have to use welfare -or food stamps- to make sure they are stable financially, which can have an awful feeling on one’s personal self. (‘Living Wages’ Needed).
Additionally, many of these jobs are manual labor intensive, now just for a minute, ask yourself, are you willing to pay higher prices at the grocery store for beef, milk, and potatoes? Moreover, consumers love their potato chips, French fries, baked potato, boiled or mashed potatoes and according to the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation (2016), growers are earning a whopping $7.70 per hundredweight. This is dirt cheap, however, if the grower pays his workers more than minimum wage, consumers would eat less, when they see the price of potatoes increase in the stores as well as restaurants to cover the additional costs. Increasing the minimum wage will lead to greater issues when; those earning minimum wage is earning just as much as someone with a degree or those states who’s hourly wage starts attracting people from other states. Furthermore, as the states increase their hourly wage, they also need to contemplate the effect it will have on those who lose their occupations and receive unemployment. In our nation’s last recession, Friedman (2010) over 30 states borrowed from the federal government to pay out unemployment benefits to millions of
Nationwide government officials often wonder how this country is going to overcome unemployment, and the common misconception is through the provision of low wage jobs. By providing people with some source of income, congress believes millions will no longer depend on government aid. In actuality, however, providing minimum wage work is not going to solve such a drastic problem now, in the future, or at all for that matter. Minimum wage ($5.15), while serving at the socially acceptable pay standard, does not even compare with the nationwide ?living wage? of $10.18 (Ramisch). It is becoming increasingly more difficult to survive on such tragic wages, yet there is often little debate because it is money, and every little bit matters when it comes to paying bills.
Food stamps have helped a lot of people out and I have no doubt about that in my mind. Many families depend on
73% of people enrolled in public assistance programs are in working families. More than half of total spending on the public assistance programs analyzed in University of California Berkeley Labor Center’s report—Medicaid/CHIP, TANF, EITC, and food stamps—goes to working families. $152.8 billion per year is spent yearly by the federal government on these programs. Guess who pays for these programs? That’s right, American taxpayers. Raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars per hour would lower people on welfare by more than two million and saves government spending on welfare programs by more than $8 billion a
In 2013, 3.3 million Americans worked at an hourly rate at or below the federal minimum of $7.25. Those3.3 million of Americans represent just 4.3 percent of hourly paid employees (Pathe) Raising minimum wage to 12 dollars an hour could reduce the welfare spending by at least 17 Billion dollars. There are at least $1,117 billion dollars in welfare, including $716 billion for Medicaid, and $411 billion in other welfare services (Chantrill). Several families in the US are working for a minimum wage job and often need help weather its Food stamps, or getting paid by the government. There are 43 Million Americans on food stamps (Pflaum)
Most single mothers that have a job work on minimum wages. This cause more single mothers to enroll in welfare assistants like Foods Stamp, cash assistance or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). In the book viewpoint of Minimum Wage is say that “in 2004” TANF gave about $1,952 to widow mother that with two kids every month and they still lived under the poverty line. If that widow mother would have worked with more than the minimum wages, she wouldn’t receive the assistant and would have being above the poverty line. In that same book it say 2.9 million Americans are hurt by the minimum wages. Most of these people are single mother and minorities. In another article by Michael Reich says that increase in minimum wage by just 10 percent, it cut SNAP enrollment between 2.4 and 3.2 percent, and reduces program expenses an estimated 1.9 percent. If the minimum wage was increased welfare assistant would decrease, which means that the government could use that for assistant for other needs like the debt we are in. Raising the minimum wage would also get rid of poverty in America. Single mothers would have more money to satisfy the needs of their children. It would also cut mothers stress and raise their kids in good
As most of you know, life is hard, actually extremely hard. As people of America each and every one of us has some sort of image of what we view “the American dream” as. One of which, is the amount of minimum wage that a person at McDonalds or even Kroger is making. This is a subject that has most Americans have been on edge about. Currently, our minimum wage is 7.25$. In the eyes of a newly employed sixteen year old having the opportunity to make his or her own money is greater than making no money at all. The sixteen year old is a newly worker, any money that is handed to
Rafaela Course Proff Date The depiction of gender roles and sexuality in “The Piano” Throughout history and even in today’s modern society, the concept of gender roles is a matter in which many individuals from all over have frequently questioned and discussed its significance. “Quote of todays society”, however in the film “The Piano”, the views on gender roles appear more unfair and discriminatory especially towards women.
Many adults are dependent on fast food industry jobs to support their families. “More than one in four fast-food workers are raising children, according to a Center for Economic and Policy Research study” (Owens). The sad truth to the matter it that “eighty eight percent of low-wage workers are adults today, compared with seventy four percent thirty five years ago” (Owens). Large companies are able to pay their lowest, “frontline” workers a decent salary, but many don’t want to share their wealth. These large industries are more than capable of doing so and to watch as their employees have to scrape by every week, to be able to make ends meets, is very disturbing. “Boosting wages for America’s lowest-paid workers is a crucial step toward reducing economic inequality and rebuilding a strong economy” (Owens).
Currently, there is widening inequality in the United States due to the savage income gap between those at the top of the income distribution and those at the bottom. According to the Congressional Budget office 2012 report, from 1979 to 2012 the top five percent of U.S. households had a real income increase of 74.9%, where over the same period the bottom 20 percent had a real income decrease of 12.1%.1 Conversely, according to the Economics Policy Institute 2014 “Rising America’s Pay” report by Josh Bivens et al, over the same time span the productivity of a typical American worker had doubled.2 In other words, despite the increase in productivity the bottom working class continues to live under income reduction. The situation is even more devastating for worker who have exceeded the stingy federal poverty limit and deemed ineligible for social assistance or only partially subsidized from income tax credit. My proposal is to raise the income of the working poor through tax credit subsidy. The end goal of my proposal is to enhance the
In the United States alone, the amount of people in poverty is 14.5%. That equates to 45.3 million people in 2013. In a country like America, one of the world’s superpowers, it’s embarrassing to admit. But the main issue is to fix issues like these with the minimum wage and welfare. The minimum wage applies to workers who got a job whether because they were in school or because they had not gone to college and had no other option. Most of the country lives off as minimum wage workers as only 1% of the world’s population has a college degree. Minimum wage needs to be adjusted to modern inflation. But the minimum wage allegedly does not affect poverty at all says a large demographic and does not need to be adjusted. The minimum wage makes up a lot of the country and should be adjusted or modified to today’s standard of living.
There are several issues that arise from the inequality in wages such as; not being able to feed the family, pay the bills and raise children. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour. The current federal poverty line for a family of three is at $19,530. Working 40 hours a week, every week for a year the minimum wage would pay someone $15,080. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “3.6 million people, earn the federal minimum wage or less.” These Americans are working in the food, retail and the home health industries. They provide for our daily necessities yet they are unable to provide for themselves. Workers, like Aarin Foster have to work crazy shifts and do all they can just to get by.
Many people believe that Muslim extremists have worn out their welcome. Muslim extremists are known for their intolerant beliefs. Some people will even kill others who do not agree with their beliefs. One United States soldier, who was serving overseas, decided that he was going to show off his American patriotism during Muslim prayer time. He played the national anthem on his electric guitar while the Muslims prayed.