In my short life, I’ve worked two minimum wage paying jobs. My first job was as a fry cook at Chick Fil-a when I was 16, and my second and current job is at Sports Authority. Minimum Wage is defined as “the lowest amount employers can their employees for each hour of work.” As minimum wage paying jobs, they were looked at, in my case anyways, as a way to have some extra pocket change and gas money. And that is the way most Americans view jobs such as fast food: as a place for teenagers to make money throughout high school and college and maybe even learn the value of a dollar. Minimum wage was originally established to reduce poverty. It was also made up to do away with sweat shops and companies not paying minors and others a fair wage for
Some policymakers may believe that companies simply absorb the costs of minimum wage through reduced profits, but that’s rarely the case. Instead, businesses rationally respond to such mandates by cutting employment and making other decisions to maintain their net earnings. These behavioral responses usually offset the positive labor market results that policymakers are hoping for.” “The positive labor market results that policymakers are hoping for” are points such as “Raising minimum wage encourages harder workers” and that an increase will “stimulate the economy by putting more money into the hands of employees for them to be able to spend more” which cannot be done, however, with inflation, because everything continues to get more expensive. Another con to raising minimum wage is that the value of even a minimum wage job increases, which means employers will look for a lot more production out of employees. Right now, the U.S> mandated minimum wage is at $7.25. Even the most unskilled worker can get a job at a McDonalds or Burger King or other restaurants. However, with an increase in minimum wage, as I said earlier about quality over quantity, employers will look for better quality workers and have much higher standards as to who they bring in to the company. A minimum wage increase to $10.10, which is the current proposal nationwide, would see the value of a job, even a fry cook, increase and that is trouble for unskilled
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
The minimum wage was, as it should be, a living wage, for working men and women ... who are attempting to provide for their families, feed and clothe their children, heat their homes, [and] pay their mortgages. The cost-of-living inflation adjustment since 1981 would put the minimum wage at $4.79 today, instead of the $4.25 it will reach on April 1, 1991. That is a measure of how far we have failed the test of fairness to the working poor.” (Burkhauser 1)
Understanding the basic concept of minimum wage is important for every single individual. We all live in this world together and it is obvious that there is an order. In order to continue our lives and afford our basic needs, we all need to work and gain wealth. As the old adage says ‘‘There ain’t a such a thing as a free lunch.’’ We need to give up on something that we like to get something else that we like. That’s why, every single individual in the society face trade-offs. However, people have different status. Some people work as employees and some work as employers. In that case of minimum wage the trade off is between employees and employers. Employees work for employers in order to gain money and afford their minimal living expenses whereas employers give up on their money and pay for employees because employers take care of their need of labor. Employers pay for their workers who we call employees and employees gain hourly money. The calculated minimum money that they gain in an hour base called minimum wages. Besides, there is this cycle that everyone actually works
Currently, in the United States, the federal minimum wage has been $7.25 for the past six years; however, in 1938 when it first became a law, it was only $0.25. In the United States the federal minimum wage has been raised 22 times since 1938 by a significant amount due to changes in the economy. Minimum wage was created to help America in poverty and consumer power purchasing, but studies have shown that minimum wage increases do not reduce poverty. By increasing the minimum wage, it “will lift some families out of poverty, while other low-skilled workers may lose their jobs, which reduces their income and drops their families into poverty” (Wilson 4). When increasing minimum wage low-skilled, workers living in poor families,
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 minimum wage today has a lot of issues; some people say it is not enough to live comfortably. Many agree that there needs to be an increase in minimum wages and by doing that it can help with our issues of poverty. Statistics show that a worker who is full time and earning minimum wage makes only $15,080 a year, which is under the federal poverty line for a family of two. (Gitis, 2013) The problem with that is $15,080 is not a sufficient amount that a person can live and grow on. “A family of two can consist of a mother and son or daughter, father and son or ...
The United States hasn't always had a minimum wage. Before the minimum wage was introduced during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there was no national minimum wage, or indeed any legislation to protect workers from exploitation. Due to this lack of regulation, tens of thousands of workers were routinely subjugated in sweatshops and factories, forced to work in horrible conditions, and for only pennies a week. Early attempts by labor unions to create a mandatory minimum wage were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that they “restricted the worker's right to set the price for his own labor.” This allowed employers to continue abusing their workers through the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the incredible demand for jobs caused wages to drop even further to an all-time low.
Minimum wage has been around for ages. Minimum wage employment was a temporary condition for people earning little payment until they moved on to a better paying job. These jobs helped build résumés, experiences, and skills for a better career. It has become the easiest way for people to receive easy pay. As years went on that idea began to demolish into a job that many families can get to survive and pay for their expenses. There have been many arguments going on, "Should minimum wage be raised or should it be lowered or eliminated altogether?" 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. It may increase poverty, but those
According to Principles of Macroeconomics by Gregory Mankiw, “The U.S. Congress first instituted a minimum wage with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938” (Mankiw 4-119). Minimum wage is used to set a limit of pay employers must pay their employees. Through the years the minimum wage has raised as productivity has raised. The minimum wage has constantly fluctuated and changed multiple times.
Minimum wage has always been a controversial issue. Many politicians use the argument of minimum wage for their own political propaganda. Some may argue minimum wage should be raised, while others believe it will have detrimental effects on our economy if it is raised. Surprising to most people, minimum wage earners make up only a small percent of American workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, minimum wage workers make up about 2.8% of all workers in America. “The majority of minimum wage workers are between the ages of 16 and 24. These are high school and college students” (Sherk 2). But high school and college students are not the entire percentage of minimum wage earners. When minimum wage is raised, it affects the entire economy in many different ways.
The people, who are for raising the minimum wage, are people who think that the reason for poverty is because of the minimum wage not being high enough. The first standard minimum wage is formed under the "Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the nationwide minimum wage was designed to lift millions of American workers out of poverty and to stimulate the economy"(Wittner). Today the people that are in favor of raising minimum wage believe that there should be another "Fair Labor Standards Act" to raise the national minimum wage to ten dollars and seventy-fo...
Minimum wage was created as a price floor to protect workers from employers that wanted to provide them with low paying jobs. Cooper explains that “during periods of high unemployment many workers are forced to take lower paying jobs.... because there simply are no other options available to them.” Workers do not have any power during periods of unemployment. Employers can easily abuse their power and they will. Businesses try to make the most amount of money possible, meaning they will pay their workers little to nothing to increase their profit. Thus, the idea of Minimum wage contradicts itself because it is the reason for the high unemployment rate in America. Consequently, forcing workers to take low paying jobs because the supply of jobs is so
They have long argued that requiring employers to pay workers more will force many of them to either cut back on hours, put off hiring, or lay off employees in order to keep their labor costs down. “Raising the minimum wage will kill jobs and stifle economic output,” NFIB Manager of Legislative Affairs Ashley Fingarson said earlier this week, as the organization sent a letter to the Senate urging lawmakers to vote against a bill that would raise the minimum hourly rate from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour. (The Washington Post) Many businesses will be hurt by the increase in wage rate due to lack of expenses of paying employees more, causing businesses to lose money and even go out of
A minimum wage is an hourly wage that is established by the government which represents the minimum amount an individual receives per hour. The federal minimum wage was established in 1938 under the “Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt” (Henderson). Currently, majority of the states have their minimum wage less than $10. However, the federal government wants to increase the minimum wage to $12 across the United States. The federal government believes that increasing the minimum wage will assist numerous people in the United States as most individuals are working in a minimum wage job to support their families. About “75.3 million people ages sixteen and over worked for hourly wages in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics” (“Minimum Wage”). Meaning almost a quarter of the workforce of this nation are working a minimum wage job. Numerous people believe that these workers are not able to make their ends meet, and increasing the minimum wage will help these individuals substantially. Even though people believe that increasing the minimum wage will benefit the society, they tend to overlook the drawbacks of increasing the minimum wage, and how it will prove to be detrimental for the society.
Many critics claim that that raising minimum wage increases unemployment, especially for unskilled workers, and harms small businesses, including grocery stores and restaurants. The argument declares that companies such as these rely mostly on unskilled workers for labor, and if the minimum wage increases, then their profits and, therefore, hiring would decline, creating a...