The minimum wage, which means the minimum hourly salary that employers can legally pay their workers, has been a controversial topic in the American economy for a long period since Franklin Roosevelt formulated the first policy at establishing a national minimum wage in 1933. While the proponents of raising minimum wage state that a higher minimum wage will help create jobs and accelerate the economic growth, there are still some opponents who query the feasibility of this kind of measurement. People on both sides provide persuasive reasoning for their perspectives, plunging the discussion of increasing minimum wage into a heated dispute. In this essay, the arguments between whether higher minimum wage will cause negative effects or not mainly …show more content…
According to a report of Economic Policy Institute, GDP would grow by about $22 billion, resulting in the creation of roughly 85,000 net new jobs over the phase-in period of increasing minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10. (Economic Policy Institute). In addition, the data from the Washington state Department of Employment Security demonstrate that a 16% increase in the minimum wage results in a decrease in the unemployment rate from 4.9% to 4.2%. However, the objectors insist that a higher minimum wage will influence negatively against some particular groups of labors. Take the youth generation as an instance, the youth nowadays account for a large proportion in minimum-wage workers: 50.4% are ages 16 to 24; 24% are teenagers (ages 16 to 19). When the minimum wage gets boosted, employers frequently cut down on hiring teens who typically fill lower-priority positions, meanwhile unable to afford hire more unskilled and inexperienced workers. As The Economist mentioned, “Around the world, young people has already griped that it is too hard to find a job”, the boost of minimum wage will inevitably cause a devastating impact on teenagers, since they take such a great percentage in minimum-wage