...Cannot ignore the issue of humane working conditions • Wage gap, class issues, race issues, gender issues will inevitably be brought up • Government vs private institutions Pros Raising the minimum wage would increase economic activity and spur job growth Increasing minimum wage would reduce poverty Cons Increasing minimum wage would force businesses to lay off employees and raise unemployment levels Would increase poverty Higher minimum wage would reduce government welfare spending Would hurt businesses and force companies to close The minimum wage has not kept up with inflation Would increase price of consumer goods Improvements in productivity and economic growth have outpaced increases in minimum wage Teenagers and young adults may be shut out of the workforce if minimum wage is increased Increasing minimum wage would reduce income inequality Would disadvantage low-skilled workers Minimum wage increase would help to reduce race and gender inequality...
Words: 939 - Pages: 4
...Outline I. Introduction II. Minimum Wage Defined a. Past Minimum Wage Law b. Considerations III. Increased Minimum Wage and Employment c. Job Losses d. Unskilled Workers IV. Increased Minimum Wage and Poverty V. Increased Minimum Wage and Effects for Society e. Costs of Labor f. Higher Prices g. Individual Impacts VI. Constitutionalism h. Previous Court Rulings i. Free Contract VII. Demotivation Factors j. Education k. Promotions VIII. Minimum Wage Redundancy IX. Conclusion The issue of raising the minimum wage is a highly debated topic. This topic is one that appeals to people from all walks of life. During some time in an individual’s life, he has worked for minimum wage. There will always be the worker who feels he is not paid enough and the boss who feels that the worker’s pay is adequate for the work. “If there were only two economists left in the world, they would disagree about the minimum wage” (Mejeur 14). Minimum wage is basically the minimal amount that an employer can legally pay an employee for work on an hourly basis. Past laws governed that the minimum wage would increase every few years, with the last increase being in 2009 for $7.25 per hour (Funk & Wagnalls 1). Many people feel an increase is long overdue. Those people, however, are not looking at the entire picture. Increasing the minimum wage goes beyond simply giving people more money...
Words: 1938 - Pages: 8
...Minimum wage has changed many times throughout the years. There are many people who are affected by the changes that are made. Many believe that raising the minimum wage is a good idea and have pushed for the increase. Minimum wage has many effects on the economy: helping families with the cost of inflation, helping businesses thrive, and can also cause job loss. When minimum wage is raised it creates more money for workers. The boost in pay for families helps them to buy necessities, such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation. When products become more expensive, it is hard for families who only make minimum wage to purchase these items. Government will then tend to step in by increasing the minimum wage to an amount that can help with these expenses. “In his State of the Union address, Obama pressed to raise the hourly rate in stages to $9 an hour in 2015, up from the current $7.25, and index it to inflation. The change, should it become law, would boost the wages of 15 million Americans, according to the White House (Luhby, 2013).” When minimum wage is raised it will help “lift 900,000 families out of poverty and increase the incomes of 16.5 million low-wage workers in an average week (Lowrey, 2014).” Increasing the price of minimum wage can help businesses to thrive. When more people are being paid an increased amount than before, it would cause them to increase spending after receiving their paycheck. With receiving more money, families will tend...
Words: 1001 - Pages: 5
...Abolish or Sustain? The Minimum Wage Debate Sarah Campbell May 8, 2013 Abstract In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act established a federal minimum wage. Minimum wage has continuously increased throughout the years due to interest rates and the value of a dollar. Since its introduction the minimum wage has risen from 25 cents an hour to 7.25 dollars per hour in 2009. In President Obama’s recent State of the Union Address he states, “Working folks shouldn’t have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up while CEO pay has never been higher.” He hopes to raise the minimum wage by 2014 to 9 dollars per hour. Following the President’s support on minimum wage increase Sen. Tom Harkin (Democrat-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (Democrat-California) formalized a proposal known as S.460, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 to increase the minimum wage by 2015 to $10.10. This proposal includes increasing the minimum wage (in three incremental increases of $.95) and then indexing it to inflation (“as prices rise, so would the minimum wage” (Cooper, Hall 2013)). Also, the tipped minimum wage (the minimum wage paid to workers who earn a portion of their wages in tips) would be increased in $0.85 increments from its current value of $2.13 per hour, where it has languished since 1991, until it reaches 70 percent of the regular minimum wage (Cooper, Hall 2013). However, in the current tough economic times many people argue that an increased minimum wage will only hurt and that...
Words: 3250 - Pages: 13
...Impact of increasing minimum wage on the economy Earlier in 2014, Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts signed a legislation which stated that the minimum wage in Massachusetts would increase from the current $8 per hour to $11 per hour over the next 3 years. To many people, an increase in the minimum wage may sound beneficial as many positive connotations such as reducing poverty are commonly associated with an increased minimum wage. However this isn’t the case from an economic perspective. From an economics perspective, an increase in the minimum wage can have both positive and negative long and short run effects on the minimum wage workers, and the economy as a whole. One of the risks associated with increasing the minimum wage is that the minimum wage will be raised over the equilibrium price level in the labor market. In the economic model below, we can see that the labor market has set a minimum wage, or the price floor (a legal minimum price at which a good can be sold) at a price that is above the equilibrium price. Because this price floor is above the equilibrium price level in the market, the price floor is considered to be binding. Because of this binding price floor, the quantity of labor supplied will exceed the quantity of labor demanded. As a result, a surplus of labor will be brought about from the binding price floor, which will then cause unemployment as there are more people who would like to work than there are jobs available. This will...
Words: 1255 - Pages: 6
...Introduction This critical literature review will focus on the impact of the National Minimum Wage on employment. This is an area we have had to familiarise ourselves with more and more throughout the last ten years because of the controversial effect of its instalment in April 1999 and its ever increasing minimum wage amount which causes most concern. The application of a few statistics should help summarise the ever increasing minimum wage and the sheer scale of people affected by its introduction. The national minimum wage has increased by a staggering 59% in the last ten years; from £3.60 in April 1999 to £5.73 in October 2008. (HRM, 2008) According to George Sayers Bain (1999) as from April 1999, the year of its instalment , “some two million low paid workers will gain. To put that into a different context is one in twelve employees; one in three house workers; one in five part time workers. The obvious reason for its introduction was to reduce poverty pay levels while at the same time decreasing the wage differentials of the minimum wage to the median wage of all workers. This is known as ‘the bite’ and is commonly used to assess the effectiveness of the minimum wage. (LPC, Low Pay Commission, 2007) As stated above the intention of this review is to firstly establish the effect of the National minimum wage on employment; justifying it as a positive, negative or mutual effect. Secondly to help incarcerate the purpose even more the retail sector will be focused on...
Words: 2214 - Pages: 9
...The Devastating Effect of Raising the Minimum Wage Raising the Federal minimum wage does not reduce poverty. If legislators raise the price of low and unskilled labor, businesses would reduce the workforce. The very laborers that are pushing for raising the minimum wage are the ones that will suffer the most. An increase in the minimum wage would lead to job loss and may result in higher prices for consumers. Minimum wage increases may result in severe economic devastation. Recently in New York between ten and fifteen thousand laborers marched in an effort to persuade lawmakers to increase the minimum wage to fifteen dollars per hour. The majority of those marching were activist students and employees of fast food industries. If protesters are successful in securing a fifteen dollar per hour minimum wage up to seventy percent of them will lose their jobs. For the first time in history, if the fifteen dollar per hour wage is approved, a fully automated solution would be an economically viable solution for struggling companies like McDonalds. Several companies are nearing commercial launch of the automated burger process. “Roboburger,” an automated burger machine can produce 8,500 burgers a day while 25 employees can produce 320 per day in comparison. If the companies are only required to pay a minimum wage of eight dollars per hour and contract labor, which means no benefits, it would still be viable to hire those 25 employees. The automation over the next few years...
Words: 814 - Pages: 4
...New York increased their minimum wage to $15 at the beginning of this year as part of Governor Cuomo’s plan, “Built to Lead Agenda”. This plan “takes the needs of workers and businesses alike into account.” Thus, New York is trying to improve the lives of employees, without hurting the employers in the process. The effects of an increase in minimum wage to workers and companies in New York may be too early to calculate because the year has just begun. Research of other states give insights as to the results of increasing the minimum wage. If New York can increase their minimum wage from $9.70 to $15, can other states follow through? The effects of increasing the minimum wage varies. Supporters believe that an increase in minimum wage “improve...
Words: 2024 - Pages: 9
...Julie Moua Minium Wage Should Remain The Same. Do you think increasing or decreasing the minium wage will solve any problem or make more problems. I believe that it does not give a remedy of solving any problems such as in these areas. Unemployment, Proverty, and Lower chance of getting a job.The minimum wage should remain the same not decreased or increased. Consequently, people tend to believe that if you increased the wage it'll cause unemployment but the center of Policy Research concluded that "the minimum wage has little or no discrenible effect on the employment prospects of low wage workers. Therefore, there is proof of increasing minimum wage will result in unemployment. Futhermore, supporters argue that is an effective way of anti-poverty tool. Business pay their low wage workers more and fewer of them should live in proverty.Higher wage should fight proverty. However, labor economists have repeatedly studied the effects of wage increase.They find no correlation between higher wage and lower poverty. Raising the wage to $9 an hour would not reduce poverty. According to the saying of labor economist I also believe it because there is no evidence of lower wage cause poverty I would believe it has to do more with how people deals with their savings. Moreover, several academics studies have found that increasing minimum wage had no significant effect on employment levels in this country. Since, it is to be said that increasing wage will not cause the possibilty of...
Words: 313 - Pages: 2
...Project: Minimum Wage There are many topics of debate that exist throughout the country. These topics encourage people to get involved in order to promote change. One particular issue of debate is the topic of minimum wage. Minimum wage is defined as the lowest amount that employers can legally pay their workers per hour of labor. It helps to eliminate sweatshops and it helps to guarantee that people are getting paid fairly for the amount of work that they are performing. In addition, minimum wage was also established to protect young workers and minorities from getting underpaid. Therefore, minimum wage should be increased in order to keep pace with the standard of living and to keep people out of poverty. Minimum wage...
Words: 1692 - Pages: 7
...The effects of introducing a living wage of £7.20 per hour on the labour market can be examined using the data known about the introduction of the minimum wage in April 1999. The living wage behaves like as a price floor as the government intervenes to maintain wages above the equilibrium wage, which is represented as the current minimum wage of £6.70. The diagram represents the theoretical effects of the policy: We can infer that due to the new policy, there are fewer workers demanded than there are supplied leading to a worker surplus. Hence the living wage is binding on the labour market as wages can’t drop below £7.20. Businesses are generating the same profit, while providing higher wages, so demand for workers shrinks. Employees work effectively and efficiently due to the...
Words: 819 - Pages: 4
...Paper: Minimum Wage and Economic Growth Economic Policy Institute, most commonly known as EPI, has always been a crucial factor in the effort to increase minimum wage and highlighting its positive effects for blue-collar families as well as the general economy. As of today, twenty-one states including Washington, D.C. have already advanced in setting their minimum wage above the federal minimum of $7.25; in other words, almost half of the United States workforce is now under the influences of minimum wages above the federal minimum. Therefore, EPI took the opportunity to conduct data and reports from these states, with the aid of the Economic Analysis and Research Network, also known as EARN, in order to advance economic policy at both state and regional levels, and at the same time, demonstrating the insufficiency of having $7.25 as the minimum wage. President Barack Obama, during his State of the Union, requested for a raise in minimum wage. In the late 1960’s, the purchasing power of the minimum wage was at $9.22 an hour in 2012 dollars, which is nearly two dollars above the current level of $7.25 an hour. Inflation is a cause of reducing the purchasing power of the dollar; so as a result, when the minimum wage is raised, the purchasing power of the eventual wage is less than the proposed nominal dollar value. The minimum wage is twenty-three percent less than its peak inflation adjusted value of 1968. One of the reasons that many support the increase of the wage is the...
Words: 1963 - Pages: 8
...only get paid minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is set at $7.25, as of 2009. Over the past 79 years, the national minimum wage has been raised 22 times (Minimum Wage Mythbusters). The wage has been increased due to inflation, or the decrease in value of currency. With inflation, everyday objects cost more than they did 70 years ago. The minimum wage today is less compared to the minimum wage of 1981. The base pay needs to be raised for the good of the people, and the good of the country. Increasing minimum wage in the United States will reduce its poverty, boost economic activity, and benefit and reward...
Words: 1126 - Pages: 5
...The cost of living in America can be expensive, especially for those who are minimum wage workers. The $7.25 per hour can barely help workers afford their basic needs. Minimum wage has a huge domino effect, when people who make minimum wage get done paying their bills they are left with little to no money to spend, which means businesses lose customers, and when businesses lose customers this weakens our economy causing people to go into debt, and turn to the government for assistance. President Obama said “Raising the minimum wage will benefit about 28 million workers across the country, and it will help businesses too (Lee).” Minimum wage should be increased to provide families with living wages, increase the employment rates, and increase...
Words: 481 - Pages: 2
...a paperboy, to the CEO of a company both get paid for their work that they do for a company or business, the only difference between these two is the amount that they get paid and what their job involves. Recently there has been a request for a raise in the minimum wage, and the effects of this could negatively impact the average American citizen, small businesses and small business owners, and finally the effects on employment. Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, could have a lasting impact on the average American. This would drive up prices in stores because the companies would have to pay...
Words: 619 - Pages: 3
