To Raise or Not to Raise Opinions surrounding the minimum wage divides America. Just like with any controversy, the opinions of Americans are not simple. Some think the minimum wage is fine at its current level. Some think the minimum wage should only be raised in certain case. Others believe the minimum wage should not be up to the government. Jack Quinn, Mike Castle, Steve LaTourette, and Connie Morella state in their article, “Raising the Minimum Wage is Common Sense,” that raising the minimum wage to match the cost of living is the route the government should take. On the contrary, in “Why I Don’t Think We Should Raise the Minimum Wage,” William Dunkelberg asserts that an increase is not common sense and would, in fact, cause more harm than good. In 2007, Congress modified the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 with the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. This set in motion a sequence of raises in the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $5.85 to $6.55 and a final raise in 2009 to $7.25 an hour (“History of Changes to the Minimum Wage Law”). In their article, Quinn, et al, point out that since 2009, the cost of living has gone up significantly. They report high percentage increases for everyday necessities, such as the twenty percent increase in groceries and the twenty-five percent increase in a gallon of gas. These …show more content…
He makes this point by saying, “A firm cannot be forced to pay more than the value a worker brings to the firm, no matter what wage the government sets. It will go out of business and NO jobs will be provided.” The only reason Dunkelberg feels a worker’s pay should go up is if the productivity rises. Higher productivity causes a worker’s value to go up meaning the worker should get paid more. This stance points to Dunkelberg’s ultimate opinion on the federal minimum wage. He feels businesses should get a say in the minimum