A mother comes home after working a nine hour shift at her low paying, minimum wage job. She has bags under her eyes and greets her children with a forced smile. Sitting at the kitchen table, she opens the mail. She throws the opened envelope upon the dozens and dozens of bills scattered across the table as she reads yet another bill to pay. This is the life of a single mother living on a minimum wage income. Single parents all over America are suffering through poverty and struggling to make ends meet. The minimum wage for single parents or guardians should be raised because a singular person cannot support a household while living on the current minimum wage, work enough hours a week to make a living wage, and cannot afford to purchase necessities due to rising prices of commodities.
Firstly, for a single parent to support a household they would have to work more hours in a week than physically possible. “The minimum wage does not provide a living wage for most American families. A typical family of four (two working adults, two children) needs to work nearly two full-time minimum wage jobs each (a 77-hour work week per working adult) to earn a living wage.” (Nadeau and Glasmeier) A two parent
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Schooling is getting more and more expensive and the raising costs are not helping anyone wishing to better themselves and attend a college. “The average cost of attending a four-year public school is more than $34,000 right now, and tuitions have been rising dramatically in recent decades.” (Mitchell 4). A parent working a minimum wage job must spend over what they make in a year to attend a university or college to be considered for a higher paying position. Colleges are becoming more expensive every year and a person working a minimum wage job simply cannot support themselves or their family while continuing their education and pursuing a higher paying