Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Debate over minimum wage
Topic on minimum wage
Topic on minimum wage
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Debate over minimum wage
There has been a lot of talk in the newspaper, political speeches, online and even on the news about how minimum wage should be higher. The minimum wage starts at $7.25-$9.15 depending on what state you live in. A lot of people can’t live on this type of salary and afford to feed their family. Society has felt the increase cost of living and a lot of middle class with no education have a lot of financial difficulties. States say how they are creating jobs, but nothing has been done for those that start out on minimum wage. Wendy Morrison who wrote “Raise the Wage” states that “The decline of Historical Consensus states that there was a substantial divide between public opinion and opinion with the economics profession on minimum wage.” She …show more content…
Going to college to get that higher education can be very costly especially if you don’t have financial aid to help you pay some of your cost of classes and books. The cost of transportation can be costly especially if you’re taking classes every day. The cost of gas has gone up so this could affect people from going every day if they live far from their job and to the school they attend. You have to think about the loans. What happens when you’re done with school and you have to pay back any loans you took out? This is a really big issue for those who still have an under paid job after college. As David Card, Berkeley and Alan Krueger looked into the effects of minimum increases for fast food worker, as they state “they have seen an increase instead of decrease.” Many people have seen a lot online lately on how McDonald’s employees want $15.00 an hour. So many people disagree on this because those people probably didn’t graduate high school, and it compares to those who have spent the time and money on getting a college degree. Yes these people need to make a decent living but not a higher wage from those who should be making that much. Each state needs to look at what type of business, what the education requirements are, the type of training, and then make a decision on the type of pay should be for that job. You can’t pay an accountant with a degree $10.00 an hour but, a bagger at a grocery store is making $11.50 an hour without a degree and didn’t finish high school. There should be some kind of law that makes it fair for everyone but at the same time allow those who have a higher education make more. If people were making a decent wage they wouldn’t be so hard on their bosses for a pay raise and many people wouldn’t want to quit. Business owners know that when and if minimum wage rises how it would affect their
Many people against raising the minimum wage create arguments such as, “it will cause inflation”, or, “ it will result in job loss.” Not only are these arguments terribly untrue, they also cause a sense of panic towards the majority working-class. Since 1938, the federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times. For more than 75 years, real GDP per capita has consistently increased, even when the wage has been
There have been many arguments going on whether minimum wage should be increased. This action has its pros and cons. It can benefit many families as living cost has gone up, price for education is rising, and college students are in huge debts. Minimum wage has been around for ages. Minimum wage employment was a temporary condition for people to earn little payment until they moved on to a better paying job. These jobs helped build résumés, experiences, and skills for a better career. As years went on that idea began to demolish into a job that many families can get to survive and pay for their expenses. It has become the easy way for people to get easy pay.
The arguments for and against the minimum wage have been ongoing. On one hand, it’s simply a supply and demand issue. As prices (or wages) rise, the demand for that product (or labor) decreases—in other words, employers will simply stop or slow down their hiring. If the minimum wage increases too much, then it could even force some smaller firms out of business. Then even more people will be out of work. On the other hand, better paid employees could feel more motivation to increase their productivity. And increase in a company’s productivity could be high enough that, in order to keep up supply, it might need to hire even more employees. In this case, raising the minimum wage has increased employment.
Since the cost of living has gone up drastically, raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do to boost the economy, lift workers morale and productivity, and improve the self sufficiency of potentially millions of American workers. Raising the minimum wage is a vital step in decreasing poverty and giving every family the opportunity to survive and succeed. Even businesses agree raising the minimum wage would give many customers more money to spend in turn increasing sales and higher profits for the companies. Therefore, raising the minimum wage would help and not hurt the economy and it would give many Americans a better livelihood and a more secured life. In today’s society it is very expensive to live in American and even getting by daily is difficult if you are living on minimum wage. Therefore, anyone who thinks the minimum wage should not be raised should try living in
“Sorry, we are going to have to let you go.” Nobody wants to hear those words, yet it happens every day. There are about 7.9 million people are unemployed in this country (“United 1) and raising the minimum wage will cause even more to lose their jobs. This has been a popular topic for awhile and people seem to be in favor of raising the wage. They believe it will improve our economy and help the working class. The minimum wage was first established so that employers could not abuse employees, but that was in 1938 (Wilson 1). A lot has changed in 78 years including the laws on the subject. The low-skilled jobs are for teens and college students yet more and more people have to take these jobs. The issue should be creating better jobs
Most people during their lifetime have worked for a company in which they received minimum wage, I know I have and I am only 19 years of age. Well in 2013, 3.3 million people of the American workforce made the minimum wage, and of that 3.3 million people, nearly fifty-five percent were adults over twenty-five years old working full-time. With the current minimum wage at $7.25, there is no doubt that it is not sufficient to support a family with that amount. Although many people and many industries believe that the minimum wage should be raised to as much as $15 per hour, raising it to that level may be extreme. Minnesota raised its state minimum wage from $8 per hour to $9 per hour for companies making over $500,000 annually, effecting more
A raise in the minimum wage is only a temporary solution to fixing the problems in the United States. The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938, during the Great Depression, and has already been increased 22 times. There are already 19 states that pay their employees well over the federal minimum wage. The highest minimum wage in the United States is in Seattle, Washington, and is set at fifteen dollars an hour. Interestingly enough, if minimum wage followed inflation, then it would be set at $4.24 an hour, which means it is already $3.01 over that amount that it should technically be (James Sherk 2013). Continued increases of the minimum wage in the United States need to be stopped as it will result in devastating impacts on low-skilled
In the United States, there has been a big debate on minimum wage between the two main parties known as the democratic and republican parties. First of all, the main concern since 2009 is that the minimum wage has been of $9.00 dollars and many liberals and a few republicans believe that it should be raised to $15 dollars. In the last couple years, it has been argued that the minimum wage is not enough to meet ends meet in the United States. This topic regarding the raise of the minimum wage is important for a few reasons. First, democrats believe that the minimum wage today is no enough to help people with their bills, or to help them have a better life. Therefore, they want to raise the minimum wage to $15 dollars in order to help these people
I remember my first real job experience, it was my first year in college, and I got a job the first week at one of the dining halls on campus. While I did receive some financial aid, it was not enough to cover all my expenses, which included books, part of my courses, mandatory dorm expenses (think of it as rent), and anything else I needed for school. I worked thirty to close to forty hours a week, at seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour, all while going to school full-time. I made just enough to live by and that was still cutting it close some months. The government should increase minimum wage to what some call “living wage”. The current minimum wage is impairing those who are doing their best to support themselves and if they have them, their families. Based off of studies and a 2010 census cost of living index, Benefits of Raising the Minimum wage, composed a setting of a life of individual trying to support a family on minimum wage. “The average worker, working two-hundred and fifty days, forty hours per week will earn about fourteen thousand five hundred dollars a year on minimum wage… The monthly expenditures don’t come even close to covering cost of living in most areas.” If the f...
The minimum wage being too low has been a public issue in America for generations. Basically, the debate includes two different opinions. Firstly, people who want to raise the minimum wage, and second, people who would rather is stay the same. The overwhelming majority of liberals are on the side that favors a raise. Additionally, a somewhat smaller proportion of conservatives favor the change as well, but for different reasons. The liberal opinion on raising the minimum wage is based on the idea that putting more money in the people’s pockets, will stimulate the economy, and decrease poverty. The problem that conservatives and liberals alike have with this, is that a few direct consequences are proven to apply when raising wages. Some proposed consequences include unemployment, inflation, and unfairness to higher educated people. Another main point is that raising the minimum wage is thought to helps small business by increasing worker satisfaction. This issue of minimum wage has become increasingly popular and important in current times, as president Obama has proposed the idea of raising the minimum wage of contract workers to 10.10$ per hour (about a 30% increase from the current 7.25$ per hour minimum wage). A large number of people consider this wage hike unnecessary due to the fact that today’s value of minimum is higher than it has ever been since the 80’s, and because the wage hike comes at too high of a cost. All things considered, the issue of raising minimum wage is not a battle of political parties and their agendas, its really a debate between everyone.
For many people in the United States, life is no more than a regular work cycle. Members of working class usually have a High School diploma and may work in a low skilled occupation or manual labor. Most of the enjoying age of this people is spent in working, as they don’t want their new once to have a life they struggling through. Therefore, this essay will argue that minimum wage should be increased federally to $15/hour by 2017. Firstly, if taxes touches the sky, why should the minimum wage be on the ground? Increasing minimum wages would also create new opportunities for education as the students wouldn’t have to work crazy hours. Likewise, many couples won’t have to work multiple jobs in order to manage the household. Lastly, it will lift
There are millions of hard workers in America that are barely balancing themselves above the national poverty line and desperately need to be paid more. Minimum wage needs to be higher, because it will lessen poverty and help the employed to support their families. The development of economic policies was created in 1933. Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “The New Deal”. Minimum wage became one of the policies that had been included. It basically promised that all American employees would earn a sufficient salary to support their families. The New Deal was the beginning of control of wages by the federal government. It made sure that every worker would be capable of earning a living wage. Because $7.25 per hour is not a living wage, that promise has been
As a high school student who has a part time job, I work hard so I’m able to afford clothes, school supplies and other necessities. With my check being around $300 every two weeks, it’s almost impossible to pay for everything I need. Having the minimum wage being set at $7.25, causes many people, including myself, to struggle financially. Majority of these families are living in poverty and need help. A teeming amount of people wants the wage to be increased, but there is an abundant amount of people who object to this idea. A minimum wage increase could be very beneficial to this country but it could destroy our economy also.
Minimum wage is a hot topic that is always being debated by many all over this country. According to Google.com, the definition of minimum wage is” the lowest wage permitted by law.” There are three laws controlling the rate of minimum wage being paid to a person. There is the federal minimum wage, state minimum wage, and local city or county minimum wage. There are many benefits just like there is much opposition to raising the minimum wage. This hot topic will always be a hard topic to agree on due to it creating the many different scenarios that will affect one group or another. It would be okay to raise the minimum wage if there were not so many consequences. Some of those negative consequences can be people getting laid off, while
For the past three decades minimum wage has been seen to rise several times. Only helping some but more than anything harming most. So who are the ones feeling the effects? Certainly not the wealthy, it never is them, mainly it would be the working poor, unskilled and teenagers. Raising minimum wage would cripple the public even more than what it would actually help.