ipl-logo

Persuasive Essay On Raising The Minimum Wage

1325 Words6 Pages

Raising the Minimum Wage
Joshua Yascavage
American Military University

Abstract
In this paper we will look at why the increase in the Federal Minimum Wage standard and those implemented by states benefit business, and the community.

Raising the Minimum Wage
Working forty hours a week and you get home open the mail and realize you have a bill you cannot pay. You make the minimum wage, a wage that was meant to allow you to meet a minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being. (Fair Labor Standards Act 1938) The minimum wage has changed a few times through the years, and current sits at $7.25 per hour, and as of January 1, 2018, will be increased to $10.35 …show more content…

Since this time the minimum wage has increased 22 times by Congress, the last time being January 1, 2018, (Minimum wage, 2018). Over two million workers earn below the minimum wage. With 55% of minimum wage workers in hospitality industry, (Minimum wage, 2018). Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich stated; “in the sense that the minimum wage nationally is 25 percent below what it was in 1968, adjusted for inflation,"(Gillies, 2015). In order for our society to grow we need to give families a living wage, and it has been proven that increasing the minimum wage effects …show more content…

City of Seattle (W.D. Wash. 2015), 97 F. Supp. 3d 1256
The Effect of an Increased Minimum Wage on Infant Mortality and Birth Weight. (n.d.).
Retrieved December 31, 2017, from http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303268
Minimum wage. (2018). In ProCon.org (Ed.), Procon. Santa Monica, CA: ProCon.
Retrieved from http://ezproxy.apus.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/procon/minimum_wage/0?institutionId=8703
Spielberg, B. (2017, June 27). Perspective | Seattle's higher minimum wage is actually working just fine. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/06/27/seattles-higher-minimum-wage-is-actually-working-just-fine/?utm_term=.ccaece4422b3
Why a $15 Minimum Wage Is Good Economics. (2017, May 4). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from http://prospect.org/article/why-15-minimum-wage-good-economics
Worstall, T. (2015, August 04). We Are Seeing The Effects Of Seattle's $15 An Hour Minimum Wage. Retrieved December 31, 2017, from

Show More
Related

The Pros And Cons Of Federal Minimum Wage

1913 Words | 8 Pages

The current federal minimum wage is set at seven dollars and twenty-five cents. Many workers across the country are complaining that the purchasing power of the minimum wage is currently low, meaning one cannot buy as much while living off of the minimum wage. Moreover, citizens are work full time, while earning the minimum wage, are living, on average, several thousand dollars below the poverty line. However, an increase in the federal minimum wage may do more harm than good. It is likely that an immediate increase in the federal minimum wage will lead to an increase in high school drop outs, a large cut in the workforce, mass amounts of inflation, as well as a large amount of jobs being outsourced.

Read More

Persuasive Essay On Minimum Wage

623 Words | 3 Pages

Today’s minimum of $7.25 an hour is worth 25 percent less than the minimum in the late 1960s. From research, a full-time, minimum-wage worker earns about $15,000 per year, which is below the federal poverty line for a worker with just one child. We need to raise the minimum wage to the point where the lowest-paid worker can afford their basic needs, such as food and other necessities. An increase to $10.00 an hour as proposed by President Barack Obama would actually reinstate the wage factor to the same value it had back in the 1960s. In doing so, it would lift earnings for nearly 28 million workers nationwide roughly 1 in 5 U.S. workers.

Read More

Texas Minimum Wage Essay

646 Words | 3 Pages

Ever since then, the actual value has steadily decreased while the minimum wage has increased (A History of the Minimum Wage, 2014). This means while Congress has been alleviating the minds of American workers by increasing the minimum wage, the actual value has been decreasing to where it is now. Over the years, people earning at or below the minimum wage have slowly lost their purchasing power while their productivity has risen. Per the Economic Policy Institute, if the minimum wage had been raised according to the productivity output, it would be $18.42 in 2014 (Mishel, L., Gould, E., & Bivens, J, 2015). This would put

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of Raising Minimum Wage

869 Words | 4 Pages

In 20014 President Obama had raised the fact that minimum wage should be raised from $7 to about $10, but republicans continued to disagree (Driscoll, Sally Grant, Richard A, 2017). Currently New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle have the highest paying minimum wage, which is around fifteen dollars an hour but only in large businesses’. After the discussion of minimum wage being raised in certain states, eleven other states have decided to raise their minimum wage to almost double of what it used to be (Driscoll, Sally Grant, Richard A,

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of Minimum Wage

645 Words | 3 Pages

Over a decade ago, Washingtonians had voted and favored the acknowledgement of the cost of minimum wage to continuously increase annually as long as the cost of living continues to surge in the state. Minimum wage is a living wage that aims to provide a standard living, account for the cost of housing and basic needs for an individual. As the cost of living continues to rise and minimum wage increases; economic inflation increases. Those that are entering the workforce for the first times and those without experiences obtaining employment are earning minimum wage almost to those that has already been in the workforce and with experience. People who are now currently working are oppressed by the increased wage of minimum wage.

Read More

Raising Minimum Wage Persuasive Essay

600 Words | 3 Pages

The nation's minimum wage is $7.25 and people are fighting to get a higher pay so one can live without the stress of living day to day. Many people could be benefited if the wage to $15. “The law, which would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, affects hundreds of thousands of workers and makes Los Angeles the largest city in the country to mandate higher pay for workers at the bottom of the income ladder. Backers predicted the action here could reverberate across the nation, ultimately aiding millions of Americans.”

Read More

Should Minimum Wage Be Raised Essay

1130 Words | 5 Pages

The minimum wage actually has risen by a couple of cent. An increase in pay is necessary to provide support to the parent if they have children,need to feed their family, and provide essential needs. First, The children,Families don't earn the pay they need to provide for their children(“procon.org”).The amount

Read More

Federal Minimum Wage Essay

618 Words | 3 Pages

. . The current value of the minimum wage in real dollars is at its lowest level since February 1956, when the lowest U.S. wage was 75 cents — the equivalent of $7.19 in June 2022 dollars” (Cerullo). The increase in the federal minimum wage and adjusting the price to compare with inflation would ensure that low-wage workers could adopt a standard of living that is equivalent to the current economy. The federal minimum wage should also be increased as it will allow minimum wage workers to afford basic living expenses. Currently, the minimum wage is not enough for people to afford housing and other necessities.

Read More

Essay Against Federal Minimum Wage

1280 Words | 6 Pages

Since its beginning in 1938, the federal minimum wage has been raised twenty-two times. It is important to know that the minimum wage does not rise with inflation. Rather, it can only rise with congressional action when they believe it is appropriate to do so (“Wage and Hour Division”). It is also important to keep in mind that quite a few states have their own minimum wage laws,

Read More

Raising Minimum Wage Essay

1305 Words | 6 Pages

As of right now, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, which might seem like a decent number. However, back in 1963, the federal minimum wage was about $1.25, but if we take inflation into account (CPI Calculator) then that $1.25 equates to $8.67, which is greater than today’s minimum wage. If we were to raise the minimum wage to $15, it would only be slightly more than the minimum wage in 1963, not taking in the fact that the living standard is higher than that of the past. In other words, the price of goods has gone up, but wages remain stagnant, which breeds poverty because people simply cannot afford basic living necessities and government places many restrictions on who receives Currently, California is the only state that raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Read More

Persuasive Essay On Minimum Wage

870 Words | 4 Pages

The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25/hour and has not changed since 2007 despite significant rises in the cost of living. Many lawmakers feel that it is past time to raise the minimum wage; the debate is by how much. An increasing number of lawmakers feel that $15.00/per hour is necessary in order to allow individuals to live above the poverty line. Others, however, feel that this significant rise would hurt the very people it is intended to benefit. If people are working, they should be able to earn enough to provide the basic necessities for themselves and their families.

Read More

Minimum Wage Sociology

1153 Words | 5 Pages

We find no evidence that minimum wage increases between 2003 and 2007 affected overall state poverty rates. ”(Leigh, A. (2007) Proposals to increase the minimum wage are politically popular because they are widely seen as an effective way to help the working poor. In spite of it, state and federal minimum wage increases between 2003 and 2007 had no effect on reducing the poverty rates. “Minimum wage increases have thus far provided little more than symbolic support to the working poor.”

Read More

Persuasive Essay On Minimum Wage

621 Words | 3 Pages

In the US, the federal minimum wage is low. Although it is supposed to be a livable wage, that is not the case. In 1933, five years before the first minimum wage became law, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level, I mean the wages of a decent living.” However, since the late 1960s, the hourly rate hasn't increased in line with the cost of living. The income of a minimum-wage worker supporting a family of four is actually much below the poverty threshold.

Read More

Persuasive Essay On Minimum Wage

1521 Words | 7 Pages

One large cost of increasing federal minimum wage is it will cause higher prices for consumers and an increase in all goods. This will increase the cost of living of all people, including families receiving minimum wage in poverty and families throughout all social classes. In the 2012 Wilson Review more than 20 minimum wage studies found that a 10% increase in the U.S. minimum wage would cause a raise in food prices by about 4%. Also according to The CATO Institute they found that restaurant prices increase in proportion to an increase in minimum wages. Michael Reich and Ken Jacobs in their article in the U.C. Berkeley Labor center say “Minimum wage increases do lead to small price increases, mainly in restaurants, which are intensive users of low-paid workers.”

Read More

Argumentative Essay: Raising The Minimum Wage

689 Words | 3 Pages

We do not know how the rise of minimum wage will affect us in the future here in California, but in Seattle, Washington the minimum wage is now $11.00. The money it is not making a difference. A study in my fourth source “Jacob Vigdor, an economist at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the report...leading the researchers to conclude that the minimum wage reduced the number of hours worked quarterly by 3.2, roughly 15 minutes each week. Those figures do not include workers without jobs… Workers employed by thriving businesses who did not lose any hours could have enjoyed welcome gains.

Read More

More about Persuasive Essay On Raising The Minimum Wage

Related Topics

Open Document