Recently, debate on whether the government should raise the minimum wage for fast-food restaurants has had employees protesting in the early-morning darkness outside of McDonald’s. Minimum wage shouldn’t be raised to fifteen dollars per hour. Increasing the minimum wage will not increase the change of workers getting out poverty or unemployment, and small business cannot stand the financial burden.
The federal minimum wage for employees is $7.25 per hour. It has been effective since July 24, 2009. Its general purpose was to keep America’s workers out of poverty, and increase consumer’s purchasing power in order to stimulate economy. Progressives introduced bills in the House an Senate to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 and, in a
…show more content…
If the minimum wage is raised it would drive small businesses that are already struggling out of business. Seattle recently approved a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, and now everyone's curious about how exactly the change may affect companies. These questions include whether or not businesses will raise prices, fire staff, cut hours, or all of the above. “As a business owner, my biggest expense is labor,” says Brett Bastian, CEO of Blast Moba in Salt Lake City, Utah. “Increasing minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 is doubling it. This is a huge burden to businesses but the cost will get passed on to consumers. I have a business partner who said he will have to increase his prices by 40 percent if it happens.” There would be less small businesses that would be hiring and even the larger business would hire less people because of the overall cost of hiring employees. Less people would be working. The effects of raising the minimum wage may impact small business owners far more than large companies, because a rise in minimum wage impacts the profit margins of small business at a greater rate, according to Gaebler.” The study from Purdue University’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, “If the minimum wage were increased to $15 an hour, prices at fast food restaurants would rise by an estimated 4.3 percent, according to a new study. That would mean a McDonald’s Big Mac, which currently goes for $3.99, would cost about 17 cents more, or $4.16.” You could also expect to see similar increases in the price of many consumer and business
Beside the increase in cost to businesses and customers, other people can potentially be hurt by this policy. By increasing the wage, small businesses will suffer a higher cost that can lead to cutting jobs, stalling new hire or even shutting down. On the other hand, the economic plight of these minimum wage workers should also be considered. Therefore, the $15 plan would produce unpredictable consequences, while not doing anything would doom minimum wage workers to live in in poverty and to consume public resources.
If the minimum wage goes up the potential of prices being raised are high. In the article “In Washington, D.C., a boost for the bottom line” Gina shaffer talks about raising prices of her products in paragraph 5. If the minimum wage is increased many stores will do the same in addition to letting people go. Another example of this is image A in our packet. The image shows two McDonald's employees enjoying the minimum wage hike, then a single mom with two kids is in the next part unhappy that the price of a happy meal has risen to
According to a study done by Perdue University, “…paying fast-food restaurant employees $15 an hour could lead to higher prices. Prices at those businesses could increase by an estimated 4.3%, according to the report” (Wihbey, Effects of raising the minimum wage: Research and critical lessons”). With a higher minimum wage, businesses must then pay their employees more, and to pay these additional expenses; they are coerced to charge more for their products, which impacts everybody, making it more difficult for people to provide for their families. The Cato Institute stated, “According to a review of more than 20 minimum wage studies observing price effects found that a 10 percent increase in the US minimum wage raises food prices by up to 4 percent” (Wilson, “Four Reasons Not to Raise the Minimum Wage”). If the federal minimum wage increases from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour, it is being increased by slightly more than 206%, which, according to this study, could lead to almost an 84% growth in food prices. According to another study on the effects of an increase in the federal minimum wage on consumer prices in the Reason magazine, “Raising the minimum wage to $15 could increase the cost of food by 43%” (47: 10). After a significant increase in the federal minimum wage, the employees who did not lose their jobs would then be receiving
The federal minimum wage in the United States is currently $7.25 an hour. Increasing the minimum wage would lift approximately 900,000 people out of poverty. Forty-three million Americans are living in poverty due to low income, health care costs, childcare costs, college costs, and housing costs. The federal minimum wage should be raised because it keeps up with inflation and would scale down poverty levels.
A fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage will affect over three hundred thousand workers and cost over two hundred twenty eight million dollars over the next five years(Deng 1). San Francisco raised the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour. That being said The Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institution, Adam Ozimek and Stephen Bronars of Edgewood Economics reported that since the increase many restaurants and hotels have laid off workers (Puzder 1). This comes as no surprise since in 2014 the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing the minimum wage to ten dollars and ten cents an hour would result in 500,000 job losses ( Puzder 1). As of right now 6.5 million Americans are working part time because they’re unable to find full-time jobs and opportunities ( Puzder 1). Raising minimum wage is only going to hurt those that are currently part time, unemployed and the upcoming generation of young adults just now about to enter the working
“Raising minimum wage doesn’t just benefit the workers behind me, it creates a proven ripple effect that increases wages all the way up the scale. Let’s get the facts straight, only twenty percent of people making the minimum wage are teenagers. The rest are hard-working adults, many of them have families, and I mean hard-working” (Biden). Studies have shown that increases in minimum wage prove that the public is overall safer and healthier. Many reports show that seven dollars and twenty five cents, the current minimum wage is a “startvation wage” and is not enough to keep families out of poverty (washington). Minimum wage in Illinois should be raised to benefit the people.
The minimum wage was created in 1938 in order to give the people some sort of fair labor standards.the minimum wage should not be increase because it will hurt individuals and businesses and hurt the socio economic of equity by increasing the minimum wage some workers are gonna gain some but other are just going to be laid off because the businesses need more money for their employees.
Families will have better care, reducing demands on the health care system. More money means people can spend money on better products at the supermarket which means there is less of the chance of them become ill. That leads to them being less of a burden on the government and the government does not have to spend tons of money on health care. When people start spending money the economy starts going and businesses make enough money to pay the higher wages. “Raising the minimum wage would be good for our economy. A higher minimum wage not only increases workers’ incomes—which is sorely needed to boost demand and get the economy going.”(Lester) Low wage workers are most likely spending the money where other low wage worker work at. This would
The federal minimum wage has been raised 22 times since it was first put into place in 1938, and today’s minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Today’s minimum wage is
The federal government established minimum wage in 1938. They established it in a law called the Fair Labor Standards Act .This also marked the first time that employers were legally paid workers overtime for certain jobs .The country's first minimum wage was $0.25 an hour. Since it was last reset on July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage in the United States has been $7.25 per hour. Minimum wage is the minimum hourly wage an employer can pay an employee for work. Some states have a higher minimum wage.Seattle, Washington has the highest minimum wage in the United States at $15 an hour. In my opinion the United States should raise the minimum wage for workers. Raising minimum wage will bring a better well being in our country. There will
The minimum wage has been a topic of discussion for decades. It was introduced in the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, originally set at $0.25. It has since been raised 29 times. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 and was set in 2009 (11). This is the reason many people are upset with the wage not increasing. It would take $8.09 in 2016 to equal the $7.25 from 2009. The minimum wage needs to be increased to boost the economy and lift families out of poverty. However, the minimum wage should not be increased to more than $10 per hour to prevent an increase in the price of consumer goods and prevent a spike in high school dropout rates.
Minimum wage is a difficult number to decide on because it affects different income earning citizens in different ways. According to Principles of Microeconomics, by N. Gregory Mankiw, minimum wage is a law that establishes the lowest price for labor that and employer may pay (Mankiw 6-1b). Currently, the minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. For many years politicians and citizens have argued on what should be the minimum wage that would benefit the economy and society in general. A minimum wage was first established in 1938 to increase the standard of living of lower class workers. To discuss what is better for the country and its citizens, people have to understand what is a minimum wage and what are its effects.
In the 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, and soon after signed an Executive Order to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 for the individuals working on new federal service contracts. An increase in the minimum wage has been a topic of
The minimum wage is a topic which has been heavily discussed amongst the people of the United Kingdom. Some think it should be lowered, some think it is at the right amount and others think it should be increased. I was shocked when I found out what the minimum wage was as I thought how could anyone live on such a little amount. I thought how could anyone afford to pay all of their bills and everything else on top of that like food and clothes. But then I looked into it more and I realised that the minimum wage is at that amount for a reason, these reasons are ones which I agree with.
Increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would cost the economy between 500,000 and 1 million jobs and an increase in $15.00 per hour would cost 6 million jobs. In 1938, Congress first enacted minimum wage that started as $0.25 per hour as a part of FDRś New Deal during the Great Depression. Today, 21 states have a minimum wage that is higher than the Federal minimum wage. The federal minimum wage should not be raised because there will be drastic and negative effects on society.