Raising Minimum Wage In America

Words: 2004
Pages: 9

Raise The Minimum Wage
When there are millions of Americans living at or below the poverty line, something has to be done. Billion dollar companies and businesses that employ workers, and pay them low wages is hurting the economy. The reality is, unless the minimum wage is raised, the cycle will only continue. The economy will suffer greatly and the people of America will feel the impact. With higher minimum wages in place, the entire country does better and, therefore, the minimum wage should be raised. There needs to be laws put in place to raise the minimum wage. Doing so would boost the economy with all of the money that Americans would be putting into it. With higher minimum wages, millions of Americans can get out of poverty, not having
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Since the 1970s, productivity has risen dramatically, all awhile the minimum wage has not. Both the middle class and low class workers’ incomes have barely changed much. Because the minimum wage rate has not kept up with the productivity rate, millions of Americans are not earning the pay they should be. Somewhere along the line, it seems as though Congress stopped increasing the minimum wage as they should have been doing. There is ample detailed evidence on how the labor markets improved after the minimum wage was increased. As quoted by Cooper, “At its peak in 1968, the minimum wage was close to $10 per hour in today’s dollars. Yet after decades of delayed and inadequate increases, today’s minimum wage of $7.25 is about 37 percent of the average wage. We have let the lowest-paid workers fall considerably behind”. Change drastically needs to take place to avoid a country that becomes rich, but the people become poor. Economists who studied these claims to death and here is what they found:
The best research shows that minimum-wage increases have little to no effect on the employment. In fact, there is ample evidence that labor market conditions improve after a minimum-wage increase because low-wage workers have more money to spend, and they’re less likely to be scrambling to find higher-paying jobs. That’s why 85 percent of small businesses already pay wages higher
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In “The Real Argument for Raising the Minimum Wage” an article written by Harvey, John T., brings up Michelle Bachman’s perspective on the minimum wage increase approach which is that by eliminating the federal minimum wage would cause an increase in the number of job offers perhaps that would be sufficient enough to virtually wipe unemployment completely out. Raising the minimum wage only help America. By putting more money in the hands of Americans in the United States, more money would be spent, giving the economy the boost it needs. Stated best in USA Today “Raising the Minimum Wage is Common Sense: Colum”, the minimum wage should go up when the cost of living goes up. The debt deficit should not be an inheritance that is passed on to future