Minimum Wage; Does society really need it increased? The debate over whether minimum wage should be raised or not has been a controversial topic over the recent years. Minimum wage was introduced in the year 1938 in the “Fair Labor Standards Act” (FLSA). What exactly is minimum wage? Minimum wage is a salary cap that hourly pay can not go below. The discussion of this topic is if it should be raised or kept the same. Minimum wage should be kept the same because people would lose their jobs, and as a result of raising minimum wage other products would go up as a result of this (“History” 1). One result of raising minimum wage is that people would lose jobs. This reason is pretty self explanatory, less jobs less income. BLS data for restaurant employment explain this reason clearly:
Since the DC minimum wage increased in July 2015 to $10.50 an hour,
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Perhaps some of those job losses were related to the $1 an hour minimum wage hike on July 1, bringing the city’s new minimum wage to $11.50 an hour. In contrast, restaurant employment outside the city grew at a 1.6% rate in the suburbs (and by 2,900 jobs) during the January to July period (Worstall 1). Therefore, this is one of the results of raising minimum wage. Another result of raising the minimum wage would be that other products’ price would increase. This may not affect your higher class, or your minimum wage workers. Although this will affect your middle class, because their wages will not increase while all of the other products will. These statistics are just one example of this, “If the minimum wage were increased to $15 an hour, prices at fast food restaurants would rise by an estimated 4.3 percent, according to a new study. That would mean a McDonald’s Big Mac, which currently goes for $3.99, would cost about 17 cents more, or $4.16” (Shutterstock 1). Therefore, with rising minimum wage costs, higher product price and cost of