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The Pros And Cons Of Federal Minimum Wage

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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. Many economists believe that if the minimum wage is increased to more than ten dollars an hour, it is extremely likely that due to the extensive amounts of …show more content…

The purpose of the federal government setting the minimum wage is to create a standard wage across the states in an attempt to keep people out of poverty. Having the federal government set the minimum wage allows for equality between races, sexes, and any other identifying factors. The purpose of the minimum wage is also to ensure that low-skilled workers are being paid adequately for their services. A federal minimum wage increase would have several consequences that outweigh the pros of the increase. For example, the increase would cause large amounts of inflation that affect the rest of the country, even those who work higher-tier jobs. There will be more employee cuts to afford the new minimum wage as well as a likelihood of outsourcing of jobs and benefit cuts in companies nationwide. Lastly, with technology advancing rapidly, it is expected that many companies will look to replace humans for the cheaper and more efficient alternative of

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According to the Economic Policy Institute, raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour would boost the incomes of over 35 million Americans which would allow people to not have to live in poverty or rely on government assistance to make ends meet. More than 600 economists, including 7 nobel prize winners wrote a letter to President Obama endorsing an increase in the federal minimum wage, stating that evidence shows that an increase in minimum wage shows no negative effect on job growth, and in fact increases consumer spending and therefore would increase demand and job growth, which disputes the idea that an increase in the minimum wage will lead to higher unemployment and helps to further the argument that a minimum wage increase is not only necessary, but actually healthy for the economy. Furthermore, according to NPR, the 13 states who raised their state mandated minimum wage at the beginning of 2014 all added jobs to their economy at a faster rate than states that did not raise their state mandated minimum wage. This fact disputes the claim made by the Congressional Budget Office in its report in 2014 that stated that raising the minimum wage, even to $10.10 would cost the U.S. economy arond 500,000 jobs. Economic research conducted by the United States Department of Labor and the Center for Economic Policy Research shows that increases in minimum wage sharply reduces employee turnover

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There are multiple reasons why the minimum wage shouldn’t increase from where it is at now. Firstly, raising the minimum wage won’t reduce the poverty level as so many people are mislead to believe. In the article “Raising the

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The minimum wage should not increase because it would lead to Layoffs, less jobs, and Inflation. Among other things these things should be major driving factors to not raising the minimum wage. There are pros to raising it but the cons far outweigh them and over the course of this you will learn about them. The first con to raising minimum wage is layoffs, having to pay workers higher wages could lead employers to rethink the employees they have hired which could lead to many employees who had made the cut before suddenly not meet the requirements for that job.

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The federal minimum wage should be increased because raising it would increase the economic activity and spur job growth, decrease poverty, and also improvements in productivity and economic growth have outpaced increases in the minimum wage. Increases in job growth and economic activity will happen when the minimum wage is elevated. If the minimum wage was increased it will “inject 22.1 billion net into the economy and create about 85,000 new jobs over a three year period”. (“Raising the Federal minimum Wage to $10.10 Would Lift Wages for Millions and Provide a Modest Economic Boost") Thousands of new jobs will be created and it will put billions of dollars into the economy.

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To begin with, the federal minimum wage should be raised because it would increase jobs and economic activity. Economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago believe that raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour would increase household spending by 48 million dollars. Increasing the amount of household spending would help the economy by injecting more money in the economy. In addition raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would create 85,000 more jobs for the United States. Creating new jobs would help the economy because people would have more money to spend which would increase the economy.

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An important reason why minimum wage needs to be raised is because many families that works in the fields do not have the resources to help their children to continue with their education. Jon Corzine, a politician ex senator, states “No family gets rich from earning the minimum wage in fact, the current minimum wage does not even lift a family out of poverty”. This means that the minimum is not really helpful and useful. It is significant because a lot of families have big dreams and they cannot make their dreams become true because they do not have enough money. Many people live in bad conditions because the minimum wage is not enough to live better.

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I believe that there is no reason to increase the minimum wage because the cons outweigh the pros considerably. In society today we like to be efficient so that means one wants to pay for something that has a greater value than the cost. So let's say that a child wanted to wash the dishes as a chore for a minimum wage of 3 dollars and after this the job was done and the child was paid because the value of the job outweighed the cost of it. On the other hand let's imagine if the minimum wage for this child was raised and he decided to charge 30 dollars to wash the dishes then in this scenario the child would be rejected and "unemployed". This happened because the value didn't outweigh the cost of the job.

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An increase in hourly wage for lower paying jobs would cause a multitude of socioeconomic issues resulting in vast unemployment of low-skill workers and general inflation of everyday consumer goods with other economic issues. Lower-skilled workers

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Economists against the public policy say that both the businesses and the unskilled workers will suffer from an increase in the wage floor. They claim that if minimum wage is raised then companies would need to compensate for having to pay their employees higher wages. Companies may do so my cutting its employee’s hours, benefits, and training or by just laying off the employees entirely (Perry). Another potential problem is that businesses may increase prices which would affect everyone else. These are the claims that economists against raising minimum wage commonly make, insisting that it would only hurt the economy.

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Minimum Wage California, as of 2016, has begun to increase their minimum wage to $15.00 per hour, more than double the federal mandated wage, and New York will likely soon follow. The federal government is currently considering raising their minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour as well. While this may seem favorable at first, raising the minimum wage in America will harm the economy. Federal laws passed to raise the current minimum wage will only increase unemployment, shut down small businesses, prevent people from aspiring to higher education in life, increase the prices of products made by minimum wage workers, and encourage companies to make their products in other countries. An increase in capital may, on the surface, appear

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As of January 1st, 2018, eighteen American states increased the minimum wage because the national minimum hasn’t been adjusted for inflation in years. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 which is worth twenty-five percent less than it was worth in 1968. This has far-reaching effects, whether it be on the economy or poverty levels. Raising the minimum wage wouldn’t just improve these metrics, it would also create income equality for gender and racial income gaps. It is simply is in the United States’ best interest to raise the minimum wage so that our country can thrive.

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Typically, wage distribution reflects the productivity of the worker. If the government decides to enforce minimum wage increase on labor market, the workers whose productivity falls below the minimum wage will find very few, if any, employment opportunities. Historically there has been evidence that employment loss has been one of the outcomes of increased minimum wage. A higher minimum wage, may be too heavy a burden on employers, especially small business owners and those employers, in turn, would be unable to hire as many people. Since January 1st 2014, employers with 50 or more employees re required to provide a package including essential benefits for their employees.

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Whether or not the federal minimum wage should be increased has been a controversial topic in the United States. Twenty-nine states have enacted state laws to raise their minimum wage, while twenty-one are still going by the federal minimum wage of $7.25. The federal minimum wage should be raised because it will keep up with inflation, stimulate the economy, and lift people out of poverty. A minimum wage raise would help get people out of poverty.

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Businesses will not be willing g to hired unskilled labor because their skills do not benefit the business enough to justify paying them $15 per hour. Despite the improvements in the economy, data shoes that the wealthy are earning more and the poor and the middle class are making less. People will also be replaced by machines. Technology has a high price tag up front, but it doesn’t receive a paycheck. “The big challenge today is we have technology that’s replacing people.

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In the past three years, many politicians and labor unions have been pushing for an increase in minimum wage. Minimum wage is the lowest set wage by a law of a government body. An increase in minimum will benefit some people, and hurt others. An increase in minimum wage will cause benefit in the short run but will be very damaging to the economy in the long run. There should not be an increase in minimum wage because it is unhealthy to the economy in the long run and it will be the major cause of job loss, increase in inflation, competition, and the price level of goods and services.

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