Minimum Wage Thesis

Although many Americans are aware that our country suffers severely in the category of poverty, minimum wage is not factor that many turn to think as a fault. They claim to know about minimum wage; however, it is merely a blank claim because they have neither experienced the hardship under a cap of expenses nor does the issue affect them. In fact, this issue is detrimental to our country as we are slowly falling into unemployment and homelessness. In Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, she states that minimum wage had fallen back comparing to the living cost in the 1900s; however, this statement is still true today. Enrenreich is a reliable reporter who travels to three different cities with contrasting backgrounds. She tried to experience the life of a minimum wage worker in order to accurately report the inside scoop of a life that most Americans do not know to exist. As a supporter of her claim after realizing the way our country has been living, I too believe that minimum wage does not fulfill its purpose and should be raised, as it does not serve enough to cover even the essential expenses.

Years ago in the late 1960s, a full-time worker earning the minimum wage could lift a family of three out of poverty (Vallas & Boteach, 2014). The rise of the cost for daily living over the years including groceries, medical bills, and raising children makes it impossible for a family to live off a minimum wage salary. “Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and indexing it to inflation—as President Barack Obama and several members of Congress have called for—would lift more than 4 million Americans out of poverty” (Vallas & Boteach, 2014). This would extremely benefit the American people and the

Price then realized that since it was the workers that were making these productivity gains, their minimum wages should increase. As a result, he cut his own salary to fund a company-wide increase of the minimum wage to seventy-thousand dollars (Keegan). Price’s actions reflect the importance of workers and their contributions to a firm. These gains should be going to the workers since they are the source of the productivity gains. CEOs can implement a program or buy technology to increase rates of production, but it is up to the employees as a collective mass to actually execute this action. Disbursing these productivity gains would contribute to increasing the minimum wage, inherently moving families up closer to or above the poverty line. Ranks show that forty percent of Americans between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-six will spend one year below the poverty line and fifty-four percent will spend a year at or near that line (Kiernan 182). For workers to still live in poverty is because without them, there would be implementation of the good or service a CEO is trying to provide. Employees are the basis of production and should be valued more than the current minimum wage. Increasing the minimum wage would also prevent people from working nonstandard hours to earn more money, which would increase the living standard. Workers that have nonstandard hours tend to be single mothers with children, who are then forced to leave their children alone

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In America after World War two, citizens were split between classes based on their economic stability. Americans today still look at these classes and defines these people as better off or worse off than the next person. Why do people judge others for having less money than them? Why do employers send lower class citizen away when they need the money the most? These are some question that citizens in the lower or lower middle class have when they are looking at their position in America’s economic system. Research shows that lower class citizens face more hardships to better their lives than those who are more stable.

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In addition, immigrants also try and apply for employment when they can, to try and reach their goal of the “American Dream” or their ideal theory of freedom. However, because of the necessity of jobs they can obtain, which are those many the American’s don’t want including: janitorial, agricultural, street cleaning, or even risky jobs. Getting less than minimum wage, not aware of the laws of the government as it pertains to paying taxes becomes a cycle where they are forced by many of the employers to break the law which otherwise would be followed. Not to mention, the occasional employer takes advantage of the 'illegal alien' and usually pays below minimum wage because they know the worker has no option but to either quit or accept it. And

In 1912 the first law for minimum wage was created in Massachusetts but, in doing so it created a controversy among people in the United States such as immigrant workers, teenagers, families, the lower class, and people of color. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour meaning that people being paid minimum wage earn $15,080 yearly which in other words they’re receiving pay that’s just below federal poverty threshold of $15,130. However, some states have increased the minimum wage salary from an estimate of $7.25 to $9.50, and honestly it would be a great idea to increase minimum wage to $10.10 an hour in order to better provide for teenagers, families, people of color, lower class, immigrant workers and also provide better job opportunities

Imagine this: the job market is terrible and the only full time job a person is able to hold is one that earns minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is currently at $7.25, and someone who works a full time job making this wage would only earn $15,080 per year. This amount of money is barely enough for a family of one to live above the poverty threshold, let alone a larger family. An annual salary of about $15,000 is not even enough to afford basic living costs, let alone child care and other expenses.

Thesis: Raising the minimum wage will cause a multitude of negative, unintended consequences. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a minimum wage “is an amount of money that is the least amount of money per hour that workers must be paid according to the law” (Merriam-Webster.com). This type of salary floor is designed to help the poor who work full time, so that a higher wage would help them escape from poverty. In the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt introduced the minimum wage in the Fair Labor Standards Act, setting it at twenty-five cents an hour (dol.gov).

Society can have a major influence in the socially economic class in different levels. I believe that poor people would like to move up in life and have a career and have a high rate paying job, but our society makes it difficult for them to move up because jobs like Walmart, McDonalds, Jack in the box, etc. pay them a minimum amount of money and it’s not enough for them to survive. “A full time minimum worker gets $15,080 annually” according to a poverty research, the same researchers also figured out that “In 2012 that the poverty threshold for a single person was 11,495 and for a family of four with two children it was 22,283.” With this information given to us we can see the impact that minimum wage can have with poor people. In the article

Low minimum wages affects everyday families and lives, more than the average person would think. A small minimum wage could have an very small effect on someone’s life, such as not being able to afford a new pair of boots or that new phone, contradictory to this low wages could also have a very serious effect on someone’s life . Meaning that a parent or single individual could not support their family because a lack of income, it could also mean the difference of living under a safe roof, or living in the streets. In 2016 alone, 40.6 million people in the United States

Those living in the United States of America are experiencing some economically dark times. Unemployment is becoming increasingly worse. Social programs are failing. Prices everywhere are on the rise as wages are declining drastically. Class division has never been more distinct. Of those lucky enough to have secured the multiple jobs needed in order to maintain their subsistent existences, most make only a minimum wage, established by their state’s laws, which is then harshly taxed upon. Life is hard enough in our dying superpower of a nation, but even worse for the work force of America that must survive on minimum wage. It is an offending disappointment that our fellow countrymen and women must live the way they do. This raises a