Increasing The Minimum Wage Essay

We as a society are not to the point of no return and we must be able to make some changes to the way we are currently operating in order to right the ship and prevent some of these societal downfalls. There are a few ways that we can start fixing these issues without completely moving to a socialistic structure and still maintain our freedoms presented in American capitalism. The first thing we must do is determine a way to increase our education levels. “In 1979 the average annual salary for Americans with a college degree was 17,411 higher than those without, by 2012 that gap has doubled to almost 35k” (Bloom). With modern economics requiring more knowledge, access to education in more important. If we do not address this issue these problems are only going

This is a more effective way of reducing the gap than increasing the minimum wage as many had advocated doing. By increasing the minimum wage, you are leading to an increase in unemployment rate while simultaneously increasing the price of everyday necessities, Necessities that those in the lower income brackets can barely afford in the first place. “Increasing the minimum wage would inherently increase the cost of labor thereby affecting the bottom line that these companies are trying to protect, causing more companies to outsource their labor” (Conrad). As stated above the rich get richer based on their investments, the reason for this is based on the current capital gains tax structure. There have been multiple attempts to reform this tax and is a popular basis for political leaders to run on; however the current rates are still too high. Currently the rates for income are 10%-39.6%, in comparison capital gains tax is 20-28%. By increasing the capital gains tax while simultaneously increasing the earned income credit it will help prevent the gap from growing any more than it already is. Not to mention, this could provide the government with the resources to help with the