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Minimum wage

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Minimum wage
The country’s minimum wage should be increased because of the current economic condition, and because it has become increasingly important in this economy to have a living wage. For various reasons, it is necessary for the minimum wage to raise to a living wage. A living wage is a wage that is enough for a person to be able to support themselves and potentially a family without a problem. Many work in retail stores that require a lot of hard labor and yet cannot support themselves for a living when they have a family and bills to worry about. The Washington DC City Council passed a law that requires Wal-Mart and other big box retailers to pay a living wage of $12.50 per hour (Washington monthly). There are plenty of companies that make millions each year, and to have employees paid at the wage of $8.00 per hour is unfair to their hard labor. The bill has not become a law yet and will not take effect for another four years. However, a minimum wage increase would raise the wages of many workers and increase benefits to those disadvantaged workers.
Increasing the wage to just any retail store might have its disadvantages if the company doesn't make as much money a year as Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, etc. If the law is approved, it would only affect any retailer with cooperation’s of over $1 billion a year and stores that average 75,000 or more square feet. That’s because it wouldn’t be fair to force smaller businesses to pay their workers high wages for little work. The law being passed will affect price changes in the company’s sales. Stores affected will be raising their prices due to the law being passed. For example, Walmart will raise their prices by 1.1 percent.
To look at this another way, an employee that makes an income of approximately $15,000 per year that is in a household of three will not be able to support their families and themselves. The law being passed will help the economy decrease the amount of people asking for governmental help such as

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