Life is a struggle and finding a job and paying your bills is not always easy in this world today. A major debate that has been an issue is whether there should be a law to raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage is the lowest hourly salary an employer can pay an employee for their work. According to Williams (2013), “The minimum wage was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938”. The first minimum wage was 25 cents per hour. Since then, the minimum wage has been increasing as the last increase of Florida's minimum wage was an increase of 14 cents on Jan. 1, 2014. This federal increase makes it 68 cents higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Gibson (2014) states “Obama, who last year called for an increase in the …show more content…
In addition, having a minimum wage forces the bigger companies out there to share the wealth to the people who help produce it. American companies make billions of dollars and the least that they could do is share it with those who need the minimum to make it through their everyday lives. For example, McDonalds is a big company that makes an enormous amount of money that can afford to pay their workers who make their profit more than just the bare minimum. According to Zadrozny (2013), “Currently, approximately 3.6 million workers make at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25”. Even though having a minimum wage helps in many ways and keeps a minimum to what people can work for, it also can do some harm. The minimum wage law does cost the economy thousands of jobs. The essential principle of economics is supply and demand and the minimum wage aspect goes hand in hand with it. In the sense of labor, this means the amount of workers increases and wages increase, and the demand for employees by employers’ decreases as the wage increases. For instance, if an office cleaning job was publicized for hiring. If the wage was $90 per hour, many people would be interested in taking the job. However, if the income was $2 per hour, there most likely wouldn't be anyone to want the job. On the contrary, if the government obligated the owner to pay at least $9 per
The push for higher federal requirements for the minimum wage in the United States, as a means of combatting income inequality, have remained a highly debated topic of discussion over the course of many years in the United States. On one side of this debate you have more progressive economists who believe that if minimum wage is increased the standards of living for many minimum wage employees will be improved, thus spurring economic prosperity for this class of workers and helping to bridge the gap in income inequality. On the other side of the spectrum you have more conservative economists who believe that with an increase in minimum wage there is also an increase in the number of unemployed workers along with a plethora of other downsides due. There is also economic findings that verify the belief that minimum wage laws also discriminate against unskilled workers in favor of skilled workers, and the most serious amount of discrimination takes place among minority communities. It would certainly eliminate jobs. By demanding that business pay workers more, it will in turn force them to hire less workers in order to keep up with their new payroll costs which in turn would further the migration of jobs from humans towards automation. In theory the minimum wage hike would definitely benefit workers who would receive that wage, but for those workers who are fired and would become unemployed due to the wage hike, it aches their economic shortcomings evermore. Increasing minimum
Barbara Mantel “Minimum Wage” According to Barbara Mantel she point out that nearly 47 million Americans, or 15 percent live in poverty according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many opponents argue that raising the minimum wage will help many low-wage workers from middle class household who are employed part time many supports say many of those household who are struggling financially and would be group as poor if it was not for the government assistances. Further, many workers who are making minimum wage are employed in the food-services industry than any other according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, many advocated imply that raising the federal minimum wage would help the low-come families by decreasing poverty rate and increase
I believe that raising the minimum wage would be an effective strategy to reduce the high poverty rates that have been problematic for many years. In 2015, about 172,620 Maine people received an income that was below the poverty line. I have seen how hard it can be to find a job that pays more than minimum wage in rural Maine areas, so finding a better paying job is not always an option.
Is it better for the economy to have a minimum wage or does it ruin the economy? Minimum wage is part of how the economy works. It deals with how much you may get paid or what might a customer give you in tips. Minimum wage has laws, helps with small businesses, and helps restore the wage for tipped workers.
In the USA thousands of employees live under the poverty line while working full time jobs
The first federal minimum wage mandated by the government was in 1938. When the first minimum wage became law in 1938, it was set at just 25 cents. Today, the federal minimum wage mandated by the government is set at $7.25 an hour. “Many states have their own set minimum wages, which are currently above $7.25 per hour already. Currently, 29 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. D.C. 's new wage of $10.50 an hour makes it the first jurisdiction to cross the $10 threshold among the states,” (Halvorson). The last time that the federal minimum wage mandated by the government was changed was over 8 years ago. “The last time Congress voted to raise the minimum wage to its current rate of $7.25 an hour was on May 24, 2007. Since then, the cost of life 's essentials has shot up. Groceries cost 20% more, a gallon of gas costs 25% more, and average tuition at a community college increased 44%. But the minimum wage remains at
⭐The minimum wage in the US is $7.25 an hour, and in more than 25 states it is even higher! This is a big problem and even though some think that raising the minimum wage is good economics, it actually would ruin the economy and many of the US citizens’ lives. This is because increasing the minimum wage would have negative effects like food price increases, loss of job opportunities, and less incentive for a higher education.
In 2017 there were many issues leading the fact people had very low minimum wages so no matter how hard you are working you are barely getting paid. In the article “Should we raise minimum Wage”, Bernie Sanders talks about the problems with low minimum wage right now. He states “. That’s a major reason why more than 43 million Americans are living in poverty. Health-care costs, child care costs, college costs, and housing costs are all going up. Wages are not.” (Bernie Sanders.) The amount that people are getting paid now for minimum wage is not enough to live off of and people can barely live off of it. The low wage has to go up in comparison with other things because if one goes up and the other does not they will not be able to pay for
"I guarantee you if a $15 minimum wage goes across the country you're going to see a job loss like you can not believe.’’ (“Mcdonald’s” 1)A higher minimum wage would create job loss,not gain. Another thing a higher minimum wage would do is destroy the economy.Some people might say the minimum wage would put more money into the working people pockets.Even though a high minimum wage would put more money into the pocket of working people,a high minimum wage would not work because of living costs, the economy and stock market would crash because of the money inflation and places like California have a higher population to support,so it can work for them.
The issue with the minimum wage is that some companies don’t see a benefit from it, it can be a factor to decisions the company or businesses may take. The owners of these businesses would rather have no limit to how much they spend on their employees, but that would create a problem. Some Companies could neglect the workers and just pocket more of the profit they make. This would be unjust to many employees’ especially low-income employees trying to support families. Another could be that the people receiving minimum pay will argue it is too low. Originally minimum wage is to set a dollar amount for those who make less amounts. Raising the dollar amount will help the employee’s see bigger numbers on their pay stubs, but everything else priced will
The main reason raising the minimum wage radically would kill the economy is the pressure it would place on small businesses. According to TheWashingtonPost.com article, Small Businesses are the backbone of the economy. They also cited that many studies from the U.S. Small Business Administration show small firms employ just
Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 is not a good idea. The unintended consequences that would come about as a result is reason enough to shy away from such a proposal. Those who support an increase contend that it will alleviate poverty. Suppose these advocates are right and a spike in the minimum wage does reduce poverty for some fortunate workers. This positive development will be offset because an increase in the minimum wage will further price out inexperienced workers from the job market, resulting in an increase in unemployment and, ironically enough, poverty. It is a classic catch-22 situation. When all the negative effects are taken into account, is an increase in the minimum wage a wise policy decision? As expounded further, no it is not.
As discussed earlier, the minimum wage would ultimately increase unemployment levels due to the labour getting costlier. This would not only threaten the current workers, but would also affect the unemployed people looking for jobs. Securing a job would be more challenging as employers would want to hire the best possible candidates who they deem worthy of the minimum wage.
The concept of minimum wage is to ensure that employers do not pay wages below the mandated level. However this does not always happen instead this policy ends up hurting these workers and the economy in terms of lower job opportunities. This is because the increase of labor costs keeping all other things constant would eat into the net profits of the company. Therefore in order to offset the decrease in profits, the need for low skilled labor decreases and companies look for higher productivity workers.
The minimum wage has grown twenty two times since it was first introduced in 1938.