Introduction Minimum wage is a touchy subject for many people. There are people who want to make $15 an hour working at McDonald’s flipping hamburgers, but they don’t think about how every day prices at the store would increase to compensate for a higher minimum wage. I have chosen the history and effect of the minimum wage because I’m interested to see how minimum wage was back in the day, how the minimum wage has influenced every day prices, and why the minimum wage keeps increasing.
1 Past minimum wage Minimum wage has increases significantly and doubling within the last 27 years. In 1990, minimum wage was $3.80 per hour for all covered, nonexempt workers. Today minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. The minimum wage lost about 9.6% of its purchasing power to inflation since 2009. Even though our minimum wage is lower than it is in Washington D.C. or Massachusetts, our cost of living is a lot cheaper. I would much rather have a lower minimum
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The minimum wage has gone from $3.80 an hour to $7.25 an hour, but the prices of groceries have gone up significantly. A pound of hamburger meat has gone from $0.99 in 1990, to $.99 today. Same goes for a loaf of bread or a gallon of gas! A loaf of bread used to be $0.79 and now it’s $2.79 and a gallon of gas was $1.34 and has gone up to $2.79. If minimum wage were to go up to $15 an hour, daily prices such as gas, milk, and bread would rise at the same rate. Fast food restaurants can not afford to pay their workers more if they want to keep the menu prices low. Raising minimum wage would be good for a little bit, but businesses wouldn’t be able to stay afloat paying out more money but only taking in what they are used to. They would be paying more and no increasing profit. Many mom and pop restaurants wouldn’t be able to survive with such a high minimum