The Pros And Cons Of Raising Minimum Wage

Recently in the news there has been a lot of talk about different states trying to pass raising the minimum wage pay. Currently, in most states minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Although there have been some states that have risen that rate already, Wisconsin is still at $7.25 an hour. There has been a lot of talk about if this raise should happen. Some citizens think it’s not right and some do. There are currently at least seven states that either have no minimum wage or under six dollars. These states include: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wyoming. The majority of all the other states are between $7.25 and $10. These states include: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida,

Why? Some people say it’s because that certain people will be making more than the people working at a company the longest. There are also cons to raising wages. This reason comes along with employers may begin to struggle and making some workers upset because of the amount others would be paid. Some workers that have strived to reach the pay they have, now are upset because the people working at a company for not as long have just reached the peak income. Although this could be upsetting, being in 2016 everything is changing including this. If everything always stayed the same, where would we be

For example, there would be more spending from the families who didn’t have the money to spend before. Because of this raise of spending it will help the economy in more ways than one. There is also a possibility of a hike in the productivity being built, leading to more jobs (Feintzeig & Weber 2016). Raising the minimum wage could also affect the spending of food stamps within the United States. As of last year over $75 billion was spend in food stamps alone. A raise in how much a person makes an hour would change this number drastically for the better. Raising the wages to just ten dollars an hour could cut the use of food stamps by 4.6 billion a year. Yes, that may still sound like a lot but compared to last year that number has come down a whole bunch (Fletcher 2014). The controversy between raising or not raising minimum wage I feel will always be there. Another positive thing to think about when deciding to agree or disagree with this is that with a raise it will allow over 900,000 people to live out of the poverty mark. Letting this happen will let people live independently and with little or no help at all from the government. This will also allow tax payers to pay less every year due to the decrease in the food stamps, WIC and school lunch programs (Fletcher