Minimum Wage In America Essay

What is it like to live on minimum wage in America? It has never been fun, but it is 
getting harder and harder as the cost of living keeps rising. While the cost of education, housing, groceries, healthcare, and utilities continuing to cost more, the American worker is scrambling to make ends meet on low wage incomes. Marco Rubio, author, politician, and attorney of law reveals, “Today the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 a hour, and has not been raised in seven years. In reality, a person working full time at a hourly wage of $7.25 will make about $14,000 a year”. Given that, the federal government deemed that the poverty line is anyone who makes less that 17,000 a year. Imagine supporting a family on those figures. Since it is apparent that the current minimum wage earner can not make enough money to support themselves, let alone a family, the minimum wage needs to be raised.
To be brief, the minimum wage has been around for the past

seventy-eight years in the United States, and it is the lowest hourly wage an employer can pay their workers. The minimum wage was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938 to help stabilize the economy and to get people out of poverty from the Great Depression. Mike Patton, a economist states, “At the time the law passed, the country’s first minimum wage was $0.25 per hour”. However, over the years the minimum wage has increased little by little. Today the minimum wage has raised from $.25  per hour to $7.25 an hour and was intended to improve the standard of living and decrease poverty.  Even though Congress generally raises the minimum wage every three to five years in response to rising inflation and cost of living, the present minimum wage has not been raised since 2009 (Thompson 7). Robert Reich, a labor secretary worker, whom worked for the Clinton administration explains, “Had the minimum wage of 1968 simply stayed even with inflation, it would be more than $10 an hour today”. As a result of this the minimum wage has fallen far behind inflation. Noah Berlatsky the author of The Minimum Wage states, “ The minimum wage is not high by historical standards—today the real value of the minimum wage is less than what it was from 1961-1981” (23). Not to mention, with the worst recession in a generation still being felt across the nation, state and federal leaders need to focus on increasing the minimum wage to promote economic recovery.
Furthermore, increasing the minimum wage will increase the standard of living and help keep people out of poverty. Contrary to the stereotypes, the typical minimum wage worker is not a middle class teenager earning pocket money. Basia Hellwig is an editor and writer for Scientific American Explorations and AARP, she explains, “According to the CBO, based on Census Bureau data, 88% of minimum wage earners are adults 20 or older; 55% are women”. Additionally these adults are the major breadwinners for their families and quite a few are single parents. For example, Christie is a single mother and she has to take care of her two kids. Christie gets paid about three hundred and thirty dollars every two weeks. Christie has no savings account and has to rely on the government to survive with food stamps and rental subsidy. Christie is trapped in poverty and it is ruining her life (Shipler 7-8). These adults are working full time at low wage jobs that do not offer employment benefits such as health insurance, sick pay, family leave and retirement benefits are virtually nonexistent. Not to mention, low wage workers are in jobs that are insecure and make it virtually impossible to invest in furthering ones education. David Shipler the author of The Working Poor explains,
. . .  working poverty is a constellation of difficulties that magnify one another: not just low wages but also low education, not just dead-end jobs but also limited abilities, not just insufficient savings but also unwise spending, not just poor housing but also poor parenting, not just the lack of health insurance but the lack of healthy households.... The troubles run strongly along both macro and micro levels, as systemic problems in the structure of political and economic power, and as individual problems in personal and family life.... All of the problems have to be attacked at once (285).
For many working Americans an increase in the minimum wage will make the difference between living in poverty and having enough income to provide food and shelter for their family. 
In reality, millions of hard working Americans are living below the poverty line and need an increase in pay. While increasing the minimum wage it will help a considerable number of people who are living in poverty get out of hardship. Camille Moron stated, “A minimum wage increase at this time could be the most important factor in powering our economy out of the recession” (Berlatsky 76). Furthermore, it would allow more workers to earn a wage high enough to be able to maintain a normal standard of living by meeting their basic needs and living expenses. Thompson the author of Poverty in America informs, “Raising the minimum wage 10% (say from $7.25 to near $8) would reduce the number of people living in poverty by 2.4%” (11). Under those circumstances, the government needs to raise the minimum wage so the working people would receive a higher paycheck and have enough money to live on.
As a matter of fact, an increased income will contribute toward more reliable workers as it reduces the stress that many minimum wage workers experience as they work extra jobs, juggle day care, working when sick or not receiving needed medical care. Also, raising the minimum wage will help to increase worker satisfaction and creates a more stable workforce. As a result, getting paid more could potentially boost workers morale and in turn could improve productivity and workers would be less likely to leave or find a higher paying job. Also, workers with more money can then invest in their education, further increasing their productivity over time.
Additionally, increasing the minimum wage spurs economic growth by giving workers more money to spend. In turn, Berlastsky divulged, “The higher the wage an employee receives, the more income he or she has to purchases goods and services for their family, which is indeed ‘the best medicine’ for our economy” (76). If workers get paid more they will most likely spend their money at their company which will keep the companies from closing and will boost the economy (Reich). Therefore in order to get the economy back on track we need to place the spending power in the hands of those who will actually spend it in the real world.
On the other hand, the minimum wage increase will cause some jobs to be lost, but jobs can be added and created just by having a healthy economy and letting the free market be free. The job market will attract more workers and employers will have more choice of whom to hire. Berlastsky reported, “Higher wages benefit businesses by increasing consumer purchasing power, reducing costly employee turnover, raising productivity, and improving product quality, customer satisfaction and company reputation” (77). A higher wage can also make it easier for businesses to recruit and retain workers. Therefore, with having more reliable employees results in lower turnover costs and higher performance standards. With this in mind, whatever negative effect a minimum wage increase would cause, they are temporary. Meanwhile, employers will find that the turnover drops and their business expands because of more cash following through the economy.
On the contrary, increasing the minimum wage is unlikely to result in higher consumer prices because most businesses directly affected by it are in intense competition for consumers and will take the raise out of profits rather than raise their prices. Also raising the minimum wage would help businesses because workers are less likely to leave their job, managers are more likely to keep the workers they had on staff to avoid the cost of training replacements and higher customer satisfaction. This in turn, drives companies to produce more, which requires more workers. In addition, most of the minimum wage jobs are jobs that are owned by massive companies that can afford to pay for such wages without being driven into bankruptcy. Actually, the advantage of increasing the minimum wage is lessened for smaller businesses because now all its competitors will be paying the higher wage as well.  In reality, companies will enjoy real benefits when workers are paid more.
All in all, trying to support a family on a minimum wage job, working full time, Americans are still going to fall below the poverty line.

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

it.