Should minimum wage increase? “The bottom line is that five million low-income Americans working full time for minimum wage, deserve a raise,” says Jim Clyburn. The argument that has continued for years is whether the American federal government should increase the minimum? The two opposing sides on this argument are the Republicans and the Democrats. The Democrats are for minimum wage to increase, unlike the Republicans, who are against it and think of it as a job killer. There are many reasons why the Democrats are for the increase of minimum wage. Currently, there are approximately 3.8 million people who are working at minimum wage or below it. Fewer than one in four minimum wage workers are teenagers and more than half are 25 or older. (Dickinson) If minimum wage were raised to $10.10 it would trim payrolls by less than one-third of one percent, which would help approximately one million Americans out of poverty. It has been proven by the Congressional Budget Office that the raise will not affect the number of jobs as much as people think, and the increase will accomplish more than just harmful situations. There should have been a consistent raise in minimum wage from 1968 to now, but there has not been. The federal government minimum wage should be close to $20 an hour. Tax money could potentially fund less food stamps, welfare, and other financial support for this to occur. A family of four trying to be successful and build their family is living on the earnings of being a minimum wage worker. If that is the case that family is making $15,080 a year, which falls more than $8,000 below the poverty line. For minimum wage workers it is expensive having to rely on taxpayers to supplement sub poverty wages. If the federal government were to increase the minimum wage to $10.10, this would help a full time worker pull a family of three above the poverty line since