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Living wage movement essay
Society and the living wage movement
Impact of work ethics
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Introduction: What is your prototypical poor person? When I think of poverty, a dirty individual on the side of a freeway or someone cramped on the side of a bridge comes to mind. Today, the poverty icon has dramatically changed. This individual is an overworked, single mother. She is someone who works numerous hours to survive and to meet the basic needs for her family; however, her job is not paying enough no matter how many hours she is working. As a young adult, I realize that work ethic is one of the most important characteristics of the United States of America. Studies have shown that our people are working harder and more years than people in any other country. The harder a person works, the more money they expect to obtain, but this is not the outcome for everyone. The economy is booming; however, there are many hardworking individuals who are still struggling to survive from their minimum income. The Living Wage movement was established to combat and help several low-wage workers in the 1990’s. This movement gave them …show more content…
There are three types of benefits. These benefits include the following: local economy benefits, business benefits, and workers benefits. The local economy benefits in numerous ways. A few of these benefits are reduced poverty rates, less reliance on social services, increase in consumer spending, and increase in business support. The business benefits include the following: turnover rates, improved quality of service, and lowered administrative costs. Workers benefit from the Living Wage Movement, because they tend to have an increased job satisfaction, reduced from poverty, and they also have an increase in education and health care. Nearly all living wage apply to businesses that receive contracts from the government. According to the Census, most low-wage workers are, in fact, adults over the age of 20. These workers that are benefiting are majority women and
The working poor are those whose incomes fall under a given poverty line. Depending on how one defines "working" and "poverty," someone may or may not be counted as part of the working poor, but even though anyone who may not be counted, each one of them are from the working poor who ultimately don’t earn enough money that is required to survive. Barbara Ehrenreich, a journalist and an author of Nickel and Dimed, is not literally a low-wage worker, she acted as an undercover low wage worker. She establishes and realizes there is not much difference between someone who is professing to exist as a waitress and someone who is waitressing. As well as a documentary 30 Days episode one “Minimum Wage” done by Morgan Spurlock and his fiancee Alex,
Poverty in America is a very complex issue that can be looked at from many directions. There are a plethora of statistics and theories about poverty in America that can be confusing and at times contradicting. It is important to objectively view statistics to gain a better understanding of poverty and to wade through the stereotypes and the haze of cultural views that can misrepresent the situation.The official poverty line in America begins with a person making at or below $12,060. To calculate the poverty line for a family, an additional $4,180 is added to the base of $12,060 for each additional member(“Federal Poverty Level Guidelines”). According to the last U.S. census, over 45 million or 14.5% of Americans are at or below the poverty line(Worstall). At this level, the U.S. poverty level has not changed much from the 1970s when the government began a “War on Poverty.” However,
In The Working Poor: Invisible in America, David K. Shipler tells the story of a handful of people he has interviewed and followed through their struggles with poverty over the course of six years. David Shipler is an accomplished writer and consultant on social issues. His knowledge, experience, and extensive field work is authoritative and trustworthy. Shipler describes a vicious cycle of low paying jobs, health issues, abuse, addiction, and other factors that all combine to create a mountain of adversity that is virtually impossible to overcome. The American dream and promise of prosperity through hard work fails to deliver to the 35 million people in America who make up the working poor. Since there is neither one problem nor one solution to poverty, Shipler connects all of the issues together to show how they escalate each other. Poor children are abused, drugs and gangs run rampant in the poor neighborhoods, low wage dead end jobs, immigrants are exploited, high interest loans and credit cards entice people in times of crisis and unhealthy diets and lack of health care cause a multitude of problems. The only way that we can begin to see positive change is through a community approach joining the poverty stricken individuals, community, businesses, and government to band together to make a commitment to improve all areas that need help.
Poverty and low wages have been a problem ever since money became the only thing that people began to care about. In Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, she presents the question, “How does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” This question is what started her experiment of living like a low wage worker in America. Ehrenreich ends up going to Key West, Portland, and Minneapolis to see how low wage work was dealt with in different states. With this experiment she developed her main argument which was that people working at low wages can’t live life in comfort because of how little they make monthly and that the economic system is to blame.
“Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937 impassioned speech calling on Congress to help the one-third of Americans who were “ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished” heralded in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and with it a national minimum wage. Echoes of that speech are still heard today. Senator Edward Kennedy (1989: S14707), in his criticism of the most recent increases in the minimum wage, declared:
Not everyone can go to college and get a high paying job. Sometimes people end up having families early and have to start working immediately. Most jobs that are available to anyone are minimum wage jobs. When people are struggling to make ends meet sometimes they’ll end up doing things that are illegal just to survive. People start stealing if they become desperate for food, especially if they have children to feed. This leads to business losing money and stock. People can also start selling drugs or sex for money. This increases crime rates and makes neighborhoods become bad places to live. If minimum wage was raised people would be more likely to take legal jobs and stay out of illegal activity.
The concept of the "working poor" has gained prominence in the post-welfare reform era. As welfare rolls shrunk, the focus shifted from the dependent poor to the working poor. It was obvious that without substantial outside support, even families with full-time low-wage workers were still earning less than the official poverty line. And while American society purports that anyone can prosper if they work hard enough, it became apparent that with inadequate opportunity or bad luck, a growing number of families could not attain the American dream, or even break the cycle of poverty. The new challenge for American social policy is to help the working poor lift themselves out of poverty. That's why progressives who supported ending welfare as we know it have set a new goal -- the government should "make work pay" so that no one who works full time is poor.
People living in poverty can be thought of as a “them” who can be easily ignored and forgotten; when, in reality, poverty can affect anyone. When people are living in poverty, sometimes it is not their fault. Often, unfortunate events that are out of someone’s control can set them up for failure. For example, the poverty rate for disabled adults from the age of 18-64 is 28.5%, while disabled 18-64 year olds only make up 7.7% of America’s population (Proctor, Semega, and Kollar 16). Therefore, poverty disproportionately affects disabled adults. The stories of those living in poverty are incredibly diverse, as Sasha Abramsky points out in The American Way of Poverty:
One way raising minimum wage will be beneficial is that it could lift many Americans out of poverty. Raising the minimum wage in Illinois, would help the families of more than 1.1 million workers who work to meet their children’s basic needs and “reduce the adverse effects of poverty on a child’s well-being” (Fiscal Policy Center). Studies have shown that raising the minimum wage would help 1 in 5 Illinois families who are in poverty. By raising the minimum wage in Illinois, it would help workers with families spend money on food, housing, gas, and other needs without going into poverty. Along with puling Americans out of poverty, raising the minimum wage could also stimulate economic growth. Raising the minimum wage, is stimulating economic growth by worsening the income inequality and substantially reducing the employee turnover for the business. Increasing a person’s income would raise their yearly earnings by $3,640 and “Improve the economic security and reduce the economies poverty rate” (Fiscal Policy Center). Low-wage workers spend most of what they earn on their basic needs, which is quickly spent and does not leave the worker with much money left to spend on other needs. This boost in the minimum wage will stimulate the economy and help create opportunities for more people, by hiring more workers to keep up with the
The living wage movement is an economic reform movement that has become one of the most important public policy issues that has come up within the last 10 years. Although there is no single definition, it is often defined as an hourly salary that allows working families of four to have an income that is above the federal poverty line. This means that the livable wage laws often stipulate that hourly wages should be two to three times above the federal Mininum wage. However, unlike the Mininum wage, the living wage has so far only been enacted on the county and city level. Cities and counties enforce the living wage for companies that have contracts with their respective cities and counties, receive subsidies from their cities or counties, other economic benefits cities and counties provide to companies, and in some cases a livable wage is required for the tourist areas of the particular city. For cities and local governments, the livable wage is perceived as a measure to increase the welfare of the poor. However, like everything in life the livable wage creates its on costs that along with its benefits of increased wage to some low income earners.
Poverty is a potential outcome for everyone. It’s sneaky and many people fall victim to it every year. No one believes that they have the potential to fall into debt, but it can happen through a string of bad luck, time running short, and other possibilities that can’t be controlled. People who are struggling with difficulty believe that there is no way out because no one will help them. However, there are ways for us, as a society, to help those who are short on income receive the help that they need. Many of the impoverished are thought to be slackers, addicts, or self-destructive to their lives. Society can help each other by dismembering the stereotypes given to people who are underneath the “Poverty Line” that they used as wedges between the classes. Labels given to those who’re poor have nothing to do with who they are as humans.
Minimum wage is a difficult number to decide on because it affects different income earning citizens in different ways. According to Principles of Microeconomics, by N. Gregory Mankiw, minimum wage is a law that establishes the lowest price for labor that and employer may pay (Mankiw 6-1b). Currently, the minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. For many years politicians and citizens have argued on what should be the minimum wage that would benefit the economy and society in general. A minimum wage was first established in 1938 to increase the standard of living of lower class workers. To discuss what is better for the country and its citizens, people have to understand what is a minimum wage and what are its effects.
"A Profile of the Working Poor". Center for Poverty Research, 24 July 2013. Web. 6
Do the poor in this country have a choice not to be poor? Do the less fortunate have the same access to opportunities as the middle and upper classes? Do government programs designed to help the impoverished actually keep them in the lower ranks? These are all difficult and controversial questions. Conservatives and Liberals constantly battle over these issues in our state and federal governments. Local and national news media provide limited insight to the root causes and effects of the nation’s poor. There is obviously no simple solution to resolve the plight of these often forgotten citizens. Most of us associate poor as being in a class below the poverty line. In fact there are many levels of poverty ranging from those with nothing, to those with enough to survive but too little to move up. I believe many of our nation’s poor are so by their own doing. I will share observations and personal experiences to support the argument that being poor often is a result of individual choice. One needs merely inspiration and perspiration to move up the socio-economic ladder in the United States. We live in the land of opportunity where anyone with the drive and determination to succeed often can.
Gans (1971) explains that the "terms and labels" used to depict the poor as second class citizens may be contributing to their inability break away from poverty. He also provides an understanding of the perseverance of poverty in American. Without the poor underpaid members of society, there are many types of enterprises that would cease to successfully operate because they currently rely on the under paid workers for their profits and continued