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The Pros And Cons Of Raising Minimum Wage

1500 Words6 Pages

To raise the minimum wage, or not to raise the minimum wage? That is the question! It's no secret that this question is hotly contested by the American public. One side says that the minimum wage should remain where it currently resides, at a meager $7.25 per hour, while the other side insists that it needs to be raised. And while there are good arguments from both sides, there are also negative aspects that need to be examined alongside the positive. To further delve into this economic dilemma, pros and cons must be analyzed from both sides to better understand what the economic impact will be to the nation as a whole. And by understanding the situation from multiple perspectives, well informed conclusions can be made. When arguing against raising minimum wages, a very common argument seems to jump to the front of the line on the issue. Why should a worker with very limited to no skills be given a pay raise? For example, according to an article from Bruce Horowitz and Yamiche Alcindor, a protest known as “Fight for 15” claims that fast-food workers, and other professions that only earn the minimum wage, cannot make a living solely off of it. …show more content…

So not only is the minimum wage lower than previous years (when adjusted for inflation), but the value of the wages also slowly diminishes over time even after the most recent wage increase. To try and combat this diminishing value, President Obama has tried to not only raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, but has also tried to have the federal minimum wage adjust with inflation over time automatically (United States). Another externality of raising the minimum wage is that those who do receive just the minimum wage will have more money to consume with. A passage from the Department of Labor on the minimum wage

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The topic of minimum wage is one that can lead to heated debates from both sides of the aisle over how much a person should be getting in payment versus how much work they do, or how hard they work to earn the payment. Countless people today are not getting paid the amount they should be based off of the work that they are putting in to their job. There are arguments leaning towards the raising of minimum wage, and there are arguments leaning against the raising of the minimum wage, however one of the arguments I find persuasive. There are some arguments that lean towards the raising of the minimum wage. The first argument presented involves job creation in the United States.

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Should we raise the minimum wage? What are the pros and cons of raising the wages in the entry level job market? Ira Knight’s speech, “Let’s Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage”, tells us of some of the pros of raising it. However, Janice Steele does a much better job proving why it would hurt us more than help us in her article, “Keep the Minimum Wage Where It Is”. To begin with, Ms. Steele shows us how raising the wage could hurt the workers that we are trying to help.

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First, one main reason that the minimum wage should be raised is because the economy will prosper. “Economic Policy Institute stated that a minimum wage increase from the current rate of $7.25 an hour to $10.10 would inject $22.1 billion net into the economy and create about 85,000 new jobs over a three-year phase-in period” (ProCon). This quote shows that the economy will flourish from the increase of the minimum wage and that unemployment will decrease. Another quote that shows how raising the minimum wage will affect employment is “To the extent that through these contour effects it affords as much as 70 percent of the workforce greater purchasing power, it effectively increases aggregate demand for goods and services, which should ultimately lead to the creation of more jobs” (Challenger 19). Bryan Covert supports raising the minimum wage by

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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.

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In the last few years, the topic of the minimum wage has been a highly debatable subject. There are numerous perspectives regarding raising the minimum wage. “The concept of the minimum wage can be defined as the minimum amount of remuneration that an employer is required to pay wage earners for the work performed during a given period,” (ILO,2014). A few of the common disagreements are how unemployment rates will be affected, who will be most affected by a change, and what alternatives are available. In the article “Why the next president should raise the minimum wage” Roger Lowenstein argues that it is his belief that raising the minimum wage will benefit society by reducing unemployment rates and thus reducing the amount of the population living in poverty.

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Raising the Minimum Wage and How It Impacts the Economy Executive Summary In 2014 during his State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama announced a proposed raise to the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 per hour. Speculations on the economic impact to the United States were not in short supply, and were strongly argued for and against on this sensitive issue.

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The Federal Minimum Wage is widely considered to be the backbone of American workers’ rights. Minimum wage was created and implemented to ensure that workers get paid fairly for the time that they work, and get paid enough to support themselves and their families. However, this, though once a reality, is no longer happening. Because of the inadequacy of the Federal Minimum Wage, and perhaps more importantly, the gross negligence of the Executive Branch of the United States government of said inadequacy, as was displayed by the Republican­controlled Congress blocking a bill in 2014 that would have raised the Federal Minimum Wage to $10.10 per hour, workers are suffering and struggling to avoid poverty and personal economic disaster. The federal

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The Service Employees International Union have been waging a “Fight for $15” campaign battle since 2012 (Gollom). If raising the minimum wage to a number such as $15 an hour, and seemed like it would have a positive outcome, it would have been changed by

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Today’s minimum of $7.25 an hour is worth 25 percent less than the minimum in the late 1960s. From research, a full-time, minimum-wage worker earns about $15,000 per year, which is below the federal poverty line for a worker with just one child. We need to raise the minimum wage to the point where the lowest-paid worker can afford their basic needs, such as food and other necessities. An increase to $10.00 an hour as proposed by President Barack Obama would actually reinstate the wage factor to the same value it had back in the 1960s. In doing so, it would lift earnings for nearly 28 million workers nationwide roughly 1 in 5 U.S. workers.

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Raising minimum wage should no longer be pondered, but rather implemented immediately. The idea of the minimum waged being raised to $15/hour has caught the hopeful eye of millions of people across the nation. By minimum wage being raised, benefits from raising the standard of living for people to the economy being boosted will affect Americans positively. Minimum wage jobs are not just for the youth, as some believe. This measly rate as it stands currently, has to provide for entire families in some cases, not just teens who are earning extra funds.

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Many politicians, business owners, and citizens hold fast to the belief that heightening the salary attached to minimum wage positions will yield negative benefits for our society. This opinion is supported by three vital view-points. The first can be found in the news article, “The Argument Against Raising Minimum Wage.” It expresses how the enlargement of this payment will take a toll on employment. The document reasons that if the amount of money employees earn is expanded, companies will be less likely to hire as many workers (Huppke).

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. . The current value of the minimum wage in real dollars is at its lowest level since February 1956, when the lowest U.S. wage was 75 cents — the equivalent of $7.19 in June 2022 dollars” (Cerullo). The increase in the federal minimum wage and adjusting the price to compare with inflation would ensure that low-wage workers could adopt a standard of living that is equivalent to the current economy. The federal minimum wage should also be increased as it will allow minimum wage workers to afford basic living expenses. Currently, the minimum wage is not enough for people to afford housing and other necessities.

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Minimum wage is an extremely diverse topic in the United States. Well, more or less, the debate on whether or not to raise it. Over the past few weeks our class has read several articles and watched a video entitled “Thirty Days”, all of which discuss minimum wage and how raising it would affect society. In this essay I aim to compare and contrast the positive and negative aspects of raising minimum wage based on the articles we have read and the video we watched in class.

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Since the Great Depression, there has been a minimum wage in America, but this minimum wage has changed 22 times since the Great Deprnbession. Many people say minimum wage should stay at $7.25 like it has been since 2009. Meanwhile, other people believe that minimum wage should be $15.00 so they can have more money to live comfortably. People think that a higher minimum wage will help, but it will hurt more people than it will help. If America makes the minimum wage $9.00, people will no longer be in poverty and it will make the economy balance out.

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Minimum wage has always been a controversial issue within America, while some americans agree and encourage minimum wage to be raised, others discourage it and argue against it. Due to Senate Bill 3 the minimum wage went up from $9.00 to $10.50 this past January. In addition, Americans are going to be experiencing a dollar increase in minimum wage every year, resulting in minimum wage being set at $15.00 an hour in the year 2021. While there are some benefits to minimum wage increasing, there are also some negative outcomes.

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