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The Pros And Cons Of Raising Minimum Wage

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Everyone is going to have different opinions over whether the minimum wage in the United States should be raised to $15 an hour or whether it shouldn’t, because there are pros and cons to each. The current minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 an hour and according to a Mother Jones article, Could You Survive on Fast Food Wages? Try our Calculator, the median wage fast-food workers receive is $8.94 an hour, while “on average they work about 24.5 hours per week” (Could You Survive on Fast Food Wages? Try our Calculator). To be a full-time employee, one must work at least 40 hours a week. By working employees 40 hours a week, there will be a decrease in demand for a higher minimum wage, more available jobs for the poor, and more hard-working, loyal employees. Fast-food and other low wage workers should be able to work 40 hours per week if they want to. Increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour is a big step and could result in many …show more content…

Most people who are considered “poor” are already not working. An article from Forbes states that “About 60% of the officially poor don't work, so the only thing raising the minimum wage does for them is to make it harder for them to get a job if they ever decide they want one” (Why Raising the Minimum Wage Kills Jobs). People who are poor are most likely just looking for a job to provide them money for food and other small basic needs. They are already used to the way they are living, so they would most likely not be expecting much and would be thankful for the job in the first place. By providing 40 hours to those who desire more hours, there is more likely a chance that more hours can be provided as well as hiring those in need, which would be less likely to happen if the minimum wage was

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1094 Words | 5 Pages

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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1913 Words | 8 Pages

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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437 Words | 2 Pages

I am currently completing an on-campus Microeconomics course. When the subject of minimum wage came up, one of the other students made the comment that he thought minimum wage needed to go up because he had been in a job for almost a year and was still making minimum wage. Why should a person who is working at a fast food restaurant make more than what another person is willing to do the job for unless they have a special skill? The current debate is whether the minimum wage should be raised to $15.00.

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1032 Words | 5 Pages

Cutting off employees’ hours or firing them due to a tight budget workers means that there are less job opportunities for workers and therefore workers might not have a job or an income to depend on. If the wage increases, it will lead to unemployment and unemployment leads families to live in poverty. The solution to live above the poverty line is not to increase the minimum wage because raising it will increase poverty rather than reducing

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189 Words | 1 Pages

Although you can back up whether you think workers should be payed more or not, the minimum wages of fast food workers should not go up. If the minimum wages increased, taxes would increase as well and the people who earned higher paying jobs by getting a great college degree and deserve getting payed a pretty decent amount would be taken away money through taxes to give to people with an unskilled job that anyone can get, anyone. Now that doesn’t make any sense! Unemployment rates would also go up because if the minimum wages per hour double, then the company would have to fire half of their employees and lots of workers would lose their jobs. So, it would actually hurt the economy by raising the wages then it would do good.

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760 Words | 4 Pages

To begin with, economists say that many people in poverty do not work. Second, most minimum wage earners are not from poor families. Also, low-income families do not even meet the “low-wage worker” bracket. In effect, they do not benefit from the program. Lastly, raising minimum wage has an indirect consequence to the “low-skilled worker.”

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623 Words | 3 Pages

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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679 Words | 3 Pages

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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670 Words | 3 Pages

Should Federal Minimum Wage be $15 an hour? The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 states that workers will be given a livable wage. By definition, a living wage is the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet basic needs. In the words of congress, it is “the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being.”

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1100 Words | 5 Pages

Raising the Minimum Wage In our economy the minimum wage is set so that people are not being underpaid for the work that they do for an employer. Currently the minimum wage is set at $7.25 an hour. Minimum wages are used in jobs like restaurants, production, and warehouses.

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458 Words | 2 Pages

The current wage is not enough to support a person or a family because of inflation the minimum wage is not what it should be at according to ALF-CIO. It would be $18.42 if it matched the inflation rate. For a worker that works 40 hours per week and 52 weeks per year they only make $15,080. According to ALF-CIO “[0 is] The number of states where a minimum wage working person can afford a one-bedroom apartment working a 40-hour week—without paying more than 30% of their income”.

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946 Words | 4 Pages

Recently, increasing the minimum wage seems to be the solution constantly talked about publicly. Proponents of an increase in the federal minimum wage believe raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour would lead to less people living at poverty level. This idea would certainly help millions of Americans and allow for families to better support their children by allowing for greater stability and spending power within the economy. The only problem with an increase in minimum wage is that it doesn’t affect those who cannot find gainful employment. Furthermore, it increases the possibility that some businesses would pay below the minimum wage “under the table” which is illegal, but still common in many industries and jobs on the lower end of the economy.

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1153 Words | 5 Pages

Introduction More numbers of state are joining to take action to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour in a few years even though there is a high disputing controversial all over the nation. The federal has set the minimum wage level to $7.25 on Jan. 1, 2015. In less than a year the index number of the minimum wage is going up automatically with cost of living. And eventually it will be likely to increase year by year with automatic and expectation index.

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711 Words | 3 Pages

A person working full time at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour earns $15,080 in a year, which is 20% higher than the 2015 federal poverty level of $12,331 for a one-person household under 65 years of age, but 8% below the 2015 federal poverty level of $16,337 for a single-parent family with a child under 18 years of age (procon.org pro#2). If you put the minimum wage at $9.00, people will be able to live comfortably without unemployment rates going up. However, raising the minimum wage

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710 Words | 3 Pages

However, most people work like mules and live below the poverty line with their salary. This isn't right nor is it moral. We question ourselves “Should the federal minimum wage be increased?” We should base this upon whether or not a person can live above the poverty line. So yes, The federal minimum wage should be increased to 15 dollars so that people can work and live above the poverty line.

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