Preview

How To Raise Minimum Wage

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1206 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How To Raise Minimum Wage
Why Raising Minimum Wage To 15$ An Hour Is Bad For The Economy The minimum wage is the lowest wage permitted by law or by special agreement, but as of late many minimum wage workers have been complaining about their low wage of 7.25 an hour. Many people also believe that the low minimum wage is the reason why a lot of people are in poverty and why there are so many poor people. Common sense would have you believe that if you raise minimum wage you raise the standard of living and you bring people out of poverty, right? Wrong. Contrary to popular belief that is not true AT ALL. Raising the minimum wage is not only bad for the economy, but it also does not help the poor it actually hurts them in a way. Poor people think if they raise minimum …show more content…
When you increase minimum wage, it limits entry-level jobs because it causes businesses to hire fewer workers therefore just leaving even more people without a job. In one study it says that for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, it would affect the unemployment rates by roughly 2 percent (Raising the Minimum Wage Will Not Help The Poor). So you can see how going from 7.25$ an hour to 15$ an hour can affect that number. Not only are many workers laid off, but the ones who keep their jobs are cut back a lot on their hours to where they were making less than before they raised minimum wage. So combined with the lower working hours and many workers getting laid off you would think people would understand why not to raise it. There is also one major reason why raising minimum wage doesn’t affect people in poverty, many of your minimum wage workers aren't even in poverty. Many minimum wage workers are between the age of 16 and 24, many of these people are high schoolers or college kids trying to earn some extra money. People make the argument that there are single parents trying to make enough to support their kids and they need better wages, but what you may not know is that very very few people working a full time minimum wage job are alone and a single parent. Less than 1 in 25 minimum wage workers are single parents who work a full-time …show more content…
This means we pay more for everyday items because the business owners are going to keep the prices of their products up to make sure they get the same profit. That means that we would be paying over 3 dollars for more for a cheeseburger from mcdonalds. Another thing people forget to think about is, do the people on minimum wage really deserve to be paid 15$ per hour. Should we really be paying people to flip burgers and fry chicken for a living that much? Also barely any of them deserve it is because many of them are in college or high school and they don't need that much at all. People try to make the argument that there are skilled workers like In-N-Out Burger. In-N-Out Burger, for example, ranks first among fast food chains in food quality, value and customer service. There are more than 150 In-N-Out Burgers in California, Nevada and Arizona. The starting wage for a part time worker is 8$ an hour (Sklar). I think people like that who have that recognition deserve a higher wage than your average burger flipper, but the thing is that you fix that with raises not raising the state minimum wage. Also this is a perfect example of how people don't even stay at minimum wage, the starting wage for a PART TIME worker is 8$ an hour and that isn't even the minimum wage! So really and truly truly getting what they deserve, and it proves that the full time workers really earn what they

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    in lemons). Cooper has a very valid point in this statement. By raising the minimum wage, it allows people to function on their own. It allows them to feel secure about their money, more so then they did before. They feel that they have some breathing room in the situation, and don’t have to scramble for money. Yes, raising the minimum wage will not help immediately, but in the long run it will have a lasting effect on the person’s financial situation. Last year my mom received a small raise, and it didn’t really help at first, but later down the road we were able to pay off some things and get ahead. People just need that little bit of security to help them keep going in…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    While there are many opposing arguments supporting the raise of the minimum wage, there are far more compelling reasons not to. First, if the minimum wage were to increase, it would cost more for business to operate; therefore they would let go of employees or close altogether. Those now unemployed people would have to file for unemployment or find another comparable job at a larger company, who would most likely be looking to outsource work as well. America would lose business and money that could have been kept in our…

    • 91 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    (Hanauer)Some people may think that is so crazy. However, the result is great. Seattle is the fastest-growing big city in the America. Washington state is generating small business jobs at a higher rate than any other major state in the nation. And the restaurant business in Seattle is also growing rapidly. The one of the reason is because the fundamental law of capitalism is when workers have more money, businesses have more customers and need more workers. If the employers can pay more money to workers, the workers will have more positive attitude on their work and bring more profits for their company. Nonetheless, there is also someone against to raise the minimum wage. The video named Does the minimum wage hurt workers? Antony Davies says “Minimum wage often hurts those who are most in need of our help.” (Davies, 2012)In this video, he uses an example to explain his opinion. Here are three people work at a same restaurant, Bob, Tom and Derek. The minimum wage of them is $8 per hour. Their income is depending on how many works they done. As the result, you can…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A main controversial issue in todays society is whether or not to raise minimum wage and how much to raise it by. There comes both benefits and consequences to raising the minimum wage price. In an article written by David Henderson titled, “ Raising the Minimum Wage Will Not Reduce Poverty” Henderson discusses the consequences to raising minimum wage and how it may affect the youth and currently employed. In another related article found on the New York Post by Jonathan M. Trugman titled, “Raising minimum wage would cost a million people their jobs” Trugman confronts, “ The American worker is grossly underpaid, by about 25 percent to 30 percent — heck, wages have been stagnant for almost a decade.” (CITE) According to both David Henderson and Jonathon M. Trugman the consequence of raising minimum wage could amount to thousands to millions of Americans loosing their jobs and becoming unemployed. Though I concede that the minimum wage price should…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hello Julia, I agree with you. minimum wage should not be raised because there will be high price production, and inflation, which will hurt consumer especially the low-income family. Raising the minimum wage commonly may be seen as a way to give a low-income worker a raise, but it resulted in a surplus since the minimum wage is a price floor. Surplus happens when the quantity of supply is greater than the quantity of demand. In this case, more people are willing to work than employers are willing to hire at the stage of minimum wage price rising and it will result in high unemployment. There would be a high unemployment rate because employers are forced to pay more which likely lead them to hire fewer workers in the workplace, especially for the small business or companies. Fewer people getting hiring mean less work is being done.…

    • 317 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Minimum wage had been a huge problem in today's world. It affecting about 1.3 millions people a year and continues to grow. People been trying to raise minimum wage forever. Minimum wage is affecting the lower and middle class the most. Some people don't notice what's really happening because they're blinded to how much they really should be making. Inflation also has to do with minimum wage. We think we get paid more, but in reality we don’t. Raising minimum wage also means prices for good go up as well. Basically we still at the same place we started. That's how they get us, by making us think we are making more and were not.…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    First of all, restaurants would have to raise prices. Researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Department of Agriculture created a study examining the effects of minimum wage increases in restaurants. They found that the 10% wage increase in 1996-1997 caused a 0.7% increase in the overall restaurant prices (“Sherk, $15 Minimum Wage”). Restaurants would now offer higher prices for their food. This isn’t fair to all the people who don’t get a pay raise because they were already above the minimum wage. More specifically, the fast food industry would have to raise prices. By raising minimum wage to $15 an hour, there would be about a 25% increase in prices in just the fast-food industry (“Sherk, $15 Minimum Wage”). Researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Department of Agriculture created a study examining the effects of minimum wage increases in restaurants. During this, they found there were especially large impacts on the fast-food restaurants in the wage increase of 1996-1997. Most fast-food restaurants have more minimum wage employees. The price increase was roughly 1.5%, double the effect on the overall restaurant amount. Also, in even lower-wage regions the food increased by about 1.8%. Another group of researchers who are from the Bank of France did a study on the effects of raising minimum wage in…

    • 1348 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One of the most controversial topics is raising minimum wage; in fact, people feel ambivalent about it. Over the years minimum wage has not been mercurial; indeed, it has always been low, making people under the poverty line struggle by not being able to provide the essential necessities for themselves. Raising minimum wage would help quell people living at the poverty level. I believe raising minimum wage would help people at the poverty level become more resilient at the fact that their pay would increase. Hopefully raising minimum wage would make human population more benevolent and maybe they will even give kudos to the government for this action. It is very unequivocal to me that if the minimum wage was raised then the poor, lugubrious…

    • 129 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The raising of minimum wage would cause businesses to lay off many of their workers. This increases the unemployment rate in our country. Furthermore the poverty level in our country would be increased by raising minimum wage. Those people who one would think would benefit from a raise in the wage, would actually be negatively affected. Their increase in pay means a decline in the hours they are allowed to work. The decrease in hours is because the demand for the expensive products has gone down. The products have become more expensive, because of the raise in wages. Raising the wages starts a trickle affect that affects many people (ProCon.org).…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A new issue that is being debated across the country is raising the minimum wage. Minimum wage is the lowest pay you can legally give to workers. The minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour. There are some people that think the minimum wage should stay the same. Others think that is too low, and they want to raise it. However, research shows that the current minimum wage is high enough to live a normal life with essential needs. If minimum wage is raised then the effect will be huge. The economy will go down, teens and new workers won’t be able to find jobs, and it will only hurt the people it was meant for.…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The minimum wage today is less than what it was over thirty years ago. The minimum wage as of today is around seven dollars and fifty cents every hour worked. If you add up how much that would make a year, it would equal around 14,000 to 15,000 dollars a year for full time workers. For some family's, seven dollars and fifty cents is the only income they receive. The amount made from minimum wage lies on a thin sheet of ice and just right below is poverty. Increasing the minimum wage would beneficent everyone by establishing an increase in job growth, setting the stage for the poor so that their expense limit would be increased, and a jump in money being able to be spread around.…

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The constitution spells out many rights the nation is protected under, but one of those rights is not financial success. James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, once addressed Congress saying “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government”, but over the last 100 years, both at the federal and state level, systems have been introduce to help the lower class of the US. Everything from social security, to welfare. Minimum wage is one of those systems to help the average hard working American not work for free at the federal level, starting it at 25 cents an hour in 1933(Department of Labor). Over the decades, the federal minimum wage lacked congressional legislation to increase wages, and the many states took it upon themselves to increase their state’s minimum wage. Many liberal leaning states are at the head of that race, with California leading with current legislation in place to raise their minimum to 15 dollars an hour by 2022. Opponents of the California signed bill say it will “devastating impacts on small businesses in California," according to Tom Scott, executive director of the state branch of the National Federation of Independent Business (Chicago Tribune). All Businesses will be showings signs of impact and will have to make up for it by either cutting hours of employees, raising prices of goods and services, or by cutting employee jobs all together. What Supporters of minimum wage increasing do not see that, yes, you’re wages will go up, but so will the cost a living. It is standard economics 101. If more people have more money in their pockets to buy goods, the models shows that businesses should raise prices to wane off demand. We will lead us right back where we started. Rent prices will go up and the lower class will complain again. The problem here is not minimum wage, but the false implication of entitlement. The growing group of…

    • 1040 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Raising minimum wage in the United States will affect our economy because of the high rates caused by inflation. Many people are constantly complaining about the low pay they receive in their checks by the end of the week. They constantly complain about the fact that they can barely afford to pay their bills, and if…

    • 1110 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A lot of people are suffering due to the fact that the minimum wage isn’t going up. Prices are increasing over time and it’s making people struggle to be able to pay the bills. A minimum wage is the amount of money that people earn from working. We are talking about minimum wage because some people think it would be a good idea if it went up. Some people say it shouldn’t because things would get worse. Things that have been going on about this topic is that if the minimum wage goes up it will support families who most need it. Not everyone has the same opinion about the minimum wage. Although some people wouldn’t like the idea of the minimum wage going up, In my opinion it would be the best thing to ever happen because it would be a big change…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There has been a lot of discussion regarding the increase of minimum wage across the nation. Currently, the wage is set at a low amount of $7.25 an hour. In today’s society it is almost impossible to live on only an income of $7.25 an hour especially for those who are raising a family. In President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address, the president proposed to raise the minimum wage to 9 dollars by the year 2015 (Luhby). A higher minimum wage would help people living in poverty by providing better means of financial stability, and it would also improve the chances of those people trying to escape poverty stricken living conditions. Another bonus to increasing the minimum wage is that it could potentially…

    • 2313 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays