Why should we increase the minimum wage?

While the recent cost of living has risen, the minimum wage has remained stagnant, creating historic profit margins for companies that employ minimum wage workers. This uneven balance of the distribution of wealth is causing a significant amount of our population to suffer below the poverty line.

Today, I urge you to vote in favor of this legislation in order to ensure that every single citizen of our country will be able to live a comfortable life, above the poverty line. The first benefit of raising the minimum wage is that such a raise will help bring a significant population of workers out of poverty. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012, approximately 9 million American workers earned a minimum wage per hour or less and 77% of these 9 million workers are the single income for the household.

A full-time minimum wage worker makes $14,500 a year, leaving a two-person household below the federal poverty threshold of $15,130. About 70 percent of minimum wage employees, however, work fewer than 35 hours per week and thus earn proportionately less.

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In any case, a full time employee earning minimum wage in our country should not be below the poverty threshold. Therefore, raising the minimum wage would help bring the workers out of poverty. Once the workers are no longer below the poverty threshold, the government would save money on welfare payments and other savings that would be good for the nation’s economic health.

In the United States, $131.9 billion is spent annually on welfare and the welfare one person gets is equivalent to an average hourly wage of .

68. As of now, 4.3 million people are making minimum wage still need welfare, housing assistance and other government money just to survive. If we raise the minimum wage, a significant number of people who are on welfare would no longer require it and the government could focus that money on other programs. Lastly, this legislation must pass is that increasing the minimum wage would act as an economic stimulus. When low-income households earn more money, they are more likely to spend it, pouring more dollars into the economy. In fact, a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago concluded that, following an increase in the minimum wage, spending by households with at least one minimum-wage worker increased by $700 per quarter.

The Economic Policy Institute further concluded that "By increasing workers' take-home pay, families gain both financial security and an increased ability to purchase goods and services, thus creating jobs for other Americans.” A higher minimum wage would also decrease turnover and thus keep training costs down for companies. This also means that the companies would not have to fire individuals or cut costs in any other field. In the end, increasing minimum wage, will help bring workers out of poverty, improve the national economy, and save government money which is why I strongly urge you to vote in support of raising minimum wages.

Why the Minimum Wage Should Be Raised?

Minimum wage is the minimum amount that an employer can pay their employee. In the United States, many people are greatly affected by the federal minimum wage. Poverty continues to increase in the United States. Currently it is at seven dollars and twenty five cents which is too low in the current world today. The minimum wage is under debate if whether it should be increased. The debate has been brought about since many people are earning the minimum wage and are dissatisfied. Debate of whether the minimum wage should be raised is currently taking place. Finding the perfect minimum wage that will be good for both the employee and employer is a process and it has been an important controversial issue for many decades. The minimum wage was last increased on the 24 of July, 2009 at the federal level. It increased from six dollars and fifty five cents to seven dollars and twenty five cents (Levin-Waldman, 2001). Every morning people go to work so that they can be able to afford a good life for them and their families. No one who is working full time should be living in poverty. This makes the essence of working to lose meaning. In 1968, the minimum wage was high enough to cater the needs of a family of three comfortably keeping them out of poverty.

In 1980, the minimum wage was high enough to cater for a family of two and keep them out of poverty. Currently, the minimum wage leaves a working parent with one child in poverty. This is fundamentally wrong. The common citizen wakes up early every morning to go to work but only the country and investors benefit. If the increase in productivity had gone hand on hand with increase in minimum wage, then it would be twenty two dollars an hour currently. But the fact is it didn’t and today many hard working parents are working fulltime and still live in poverty. This uneven balance of the distribution of wealth is causing a significant amount of our population to suffer below the poverty line (Great Britain, 2011). Education is an essential key if one is to be employed and the cost of education has gone up drastically in the past twenty years. Employers should be paying employees what they deserve, which is more than the minimum wage today. With the progress in technological fields that are been experiences in the future work may be harder and complicated and thus will require employees to have good education. Children cannot improve and better their lives if their parents cannot afford to pay for their education.

This leads to children having inadequate education as well adults going to collages (Waltman, 2008). It has reached a place where some children rely on themselves to pay for their education. Some even drop out since tha cannot afford the tuition fee because of the minimum wage they earn. This is just not fair to the children who are the future. By increasing the minimum wage, many people will be afforded the opportunity for a good and better education for themselves and their children. By doing this we are able to secure the future of the children. As we advance in technology people will be forced to understand and learn more. The demand for educated workers is currently on the increase and so is the price of education. A person living on their own cannot survive on the minimum wage job. This is because their living expenses would be just too much.

Too many people who earn minimum wage depend on assistance from the government just to keep their heads above water. By increasing the minimum wage more than 3.6 million people will stop depending on the food stamp rolls. This people will have satisfaction and dignity of buying their own food. Increasing the minimum wages will not cause job loss as many people tend to speculate. Research concludes that increasing the minimum wage has little or no effect on job growth and availability. More workers will be able to enter the job market when wages rise (Jones ; Farness, 2002). This allows businesses to choose from high skilled workers. By doing this, small business owners increase their opportunity to improve productivity by using high quality workers who were not previously available.

By increasing the minimum wage everybody will be affected. Out of this eighty eight per cent are adults and one out of four adults has kids. Approximately more than fifteen million women will see their pay go up. One thing that I believe is that raising the minimum wage is good for the economy. According to Jones ; Farness (2002), people who earn minimum wage account for approximately seventy per cent of the United States gross domestic product. Raising the minimum wage means people will have more money to spend which helps to propel the economy forward. This will in turn give a boost to small business. Also with a high minimum wage few people will need to depend on food stamps or support from the government to feed their families. A higher wage translates to people being able to provide for themselves and their families. Increasing the minimum wage will allow families to climb out of debt and maybe climb the social ladder.

Others claim that by increasing the minimum wage major cost will be passed to the consumers. They claim that higher wages will lead to higher prices and those cost increases would effectively eat up the extra earning the workers take up home. But according to Waltman (2008), increase in the minimum wage will have little or no impact at all to the price of goods and services offered.

The minimum wage needs to be increased for people to survive in the current world today. Education, medicine and food all cost more currently. Currently welfare reforms force more poor families to depend on their earning from low paying jobs. Even though by increasing the minimum wage poverty may not be completely solved it will be greatly reduced. An increase in the minimum wage will also motivate people to get employed. This is because they would fill that they are getting paid for their services (Levin-Waldman, 2001). Increasing minimum wage will also increase productivity in many companies since the employee will be motivated to work hard and be creative. As technology keeps on improving and getting better people need to be more educated and worked even harder. By increasing the minimum wage people get encouraged to be educated and live better lives.

Reference
Great Britain., Great Britain., ; Great Britain. (2011). National minimum wage: Low Pay Commission report 2011. London: Stationery Office. Jones, P., ; Farness, J. (2002). College writing skills. San Diego, Calif: Collegiate Press. Levin-Waldman, O. M. (2001). The case of the minimum wage: Competing policy models. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press. Waltman, J. L. (2008). Minimum wage policy in Great Britain and the United States. New York: Algora
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