The issue of minimum wage The debate between the relationship of poverty and minimum wage has existed for many years, and yet there is not sufficient evidence that raising minimum wage will significantly reduce poverty among many people. Through the increase in minimum wage, who will benefit and who will be dragged down? It is easy to say that no one will benefit, and at the same time it is clearly evident that the intended workers, ones from poor families, will be dragged down first. Rather than helping the lives of poor people, increasing minimum wage will hurt them or leave them unaffected. One major reason behind the lack of relationship between poverty and minimum wage is that a small portion of minimum wage workers make up poor families. Raising minimum wage will lead to minimum wage workers working less who will end up with no significant gain. One major setback in raising minimum wage is that minimum wage workers will work …show more content…
Within the nation, there is a “vast majority of minimum-wage workers [who] do not live in poverty” (source 1). Due to the little number of poor minimum-wage workers, an increase in minimum wage would little benefit poor families. Only about “less than one in five live at or below the poverty line,” which doesn’t draw as much attention. If minimum wage would increase, it would affect not many poor people, and at the same time there would be other changes happening to the minimum-wage workers who aren’t from poor families. Not only does this change impact people, but it also impacts businesses as well. Source 3 explains that “ the impact will be two-and-a-half times bigger for businesses employing fewer than ten people” which broadens the idea of how impactful a small increase in minimum wage would be. Minimum wage hiking would unnecessarily affect the wages of those who aren’t from poor