Main Causes why Minimum Wage should Increase

writer-avatar
Exclusively available on PapersOwl
Updated: May 16, 2022
Listen
Download
Cite this
Category:Employment
Date added
2019/06/28
Pages:  8
Order Original Essay

How it works

There are a lot of people around the world who struggle with money because of the minimum wage. Minimum wages have been one of the biggest topics around the United States. Minimum wage is the minimum hourly wage an employer pays an employee for work. Since 1938, when the minimum wage was first introduced at a rate of $0.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage has increased 22 times.

In all 50 states of America, twenty-one states have minimum wages at or below the federal minimum and various other states have minimum wages that are above .

Need a custom essay on the same topic?
Give us your paper requirements, choose a writer and we’ll deliver the highest-quality essay!
Order now

25 an hour (What is the history of the minimum wage). This is a big issue since living expenses have been increased over time. As a direct result of pressure from the progressive movement, the first state minimum wage laws were introduced in Massachusetts 1912.

When people discuss minimum wage, it is poorly centered at the poor. Although the objective of the minimum wage is to ensure coverage of basic needs like food, health, education, shelter, clothing, and recreation workers, undoubtedly this will not meet its objectives, because the price of the minimum wage doesn’t possibly meet all these needs. In fact, a family with minimum wage find it hard to live a comfortable lifestyle because they live on paycheck to paycheck. If that were the only problem, the coverage would possibly nonetheless make sense as a section of a larger poverty-reduction package.

Some individuals might think that just because they are educated and trained, they’ll automatically get a job that pays well. A lot of skilled professionals make salaries that are barely above minimum wage in some areas. But empirical proof posted in the Journal of Human Resources suggests that a low minimum wage can genuinely move more people into poverty than it moves them out of it (Saltsman).

A non-profit organization that seeks to help decrease the problem is known as the National Employment Law Project also known as (NELP). NELP is a non-profit organization promoting policies that’ create good jobs, increase access for workers, and enhance protection and support for low-wage and unemployed workers. For over 45 years, NELP has been seeking to ensure that America upholds its promise of opportunities and economic security through work for all workers. NELP has created campaigns and projects to help and support the low-wage workers. Campaigns like “The Fight for $15” and a project on an internet website called “Raising the Minimum Wage”.

These campaigns and project get reviewed by well-known sources like the New York Times, The Atlantic, and CBS News which gets their message across easier. The idea of raising minimum wages is a tough topic with many viewpoints. Even though some states have a higher minimum wage than other states, it is still difficult for low-wage workers to rise higher than the poverty level. The higher the minimum wage is, the higher the government makes the taxes and businesses raising their prices.

In modern times, most minimum-wage workers aren’t teenagers. Instead, many minimum-wage workers are the head-of-household or breadwinners, who need a higher wage in order to keep their families out of poverty. Although increasing minimum wage has some cons it still brings various benefits to the economy. The increase in the minimum wage would greatly benefit the nation, as all the citizens desperately need financial stability. Therefore, the minimum wage should be increased, to lift the economy up, reduce the need for government assistance, increase consumer spending, and decrease the poverty rate.

Putting more money in the hands of people who will readily spend it, helps the economy. Raising the minimum wage not only increases the income of workers which is sorely needed to boost demand and drive the economy but also reduces turnover, cuts the costs imposed on taxpayers by low-road employers and pushes businesses towards a high-road, high-human capital model. Hypothetically, raising the minimum wage would mean more cash in the pockets of workers. Just because an individual has a higher education doesn’t always mean they have a high pay job. Some individuals might think that just because they are educated and trained, they’ll automatically get a job that pays well. A lot of skilled professionals make salaries that are barely above minimum wage in some areas.

In fact in an article How Does the Minimum Wage Impact the Economy, Sylvia Allegretto argues, don’t forget that these low-wage workers today, compared to their counterparts of decades ago, are more educated, they’re more productive, the economic pie has expanded greatly, yet these low-wage workers are making less today than similar workers did several decades ago (Allegretto). The rate of minimum wage is not the same in every place, so to the place minimum wage is low it is an issue. Even though the federal minimum wage hasn’t expanded since 2009, most states have a higher minimum wage than required by the federal government such as Alaska: $9.84, $.04 increase, Arizona: $10.50, $.50 increase, California: $11.00, $.50 increase.

Moreover, some nearby regions have started the lowest pay permitted by law increases for their area. For example, San Francisco’s lowest pay permitted by law is higher than the state of California’s minimum wage. “In California, the minimum wage is $11 and in a high-cost state like Cali, that’s barely enough to support a family” (Bailey). The low minimum wage in some places is a result of the unfortunate ethos in America. NELP is an organization that is known to help raise the minimum wage of this country.

NELP has started campaigns like The Fight for $15 to provoke other states to start. The Fight for $15 is a grassroots movement of low-wage workers that seeks to undo decades of wage stagnation and growing inequality by raising the wage floor to more robust levels (Raising the Minimum Wage). With some of their articles getting published by higher and known sources like the New York Times, The Atlantic, and CBS News it gives them the advantage to get across their message to numerous people.

By raising the minimum wage most people won’t need government assistance anymore. Which in this case will break the bond with the government assistance? It has come to where millions of Americans rely upon public assistance programs to help meet their basic needs. Programs like food stamps (SNAP), state insurance, and social insurance have helped scale back impoverishment over the last four decades (citation).

By breaking the bond and rising costs of necessities such as child care, housing, and health care gives people the ability to achieve a modest but adequate standard of living requires. There are two essential exceptions to this generalization: The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and child care subsidies focused on working dad and mom who earn low incomes. Because advantages beneath these applications are solely payable to low-income households containing a mum or dad who is gainfully employed, this sort of authority subsidy encourages adults, ineligible families, to enter or continue to be in the job market instead than to drop out of it.

By boosting the furnish of viable low-wage workers, the two applications can put downward stress on pay, circuitously benefiting employers who depend on less-skilled workers. It is somewhat surprising that any workers with high hourly wages would show any receipt of public assistance. Government assists that working full time can help and bring an individual’s income higher. For many workers in certain sectors, wages are so low that even those who work full time must rely heavily on government assistance to make ends meet. This recommends low pay by numerous businesses encouraged by debilitated or lacking work measures, for example, a low the lowest pay permitted by law and obsolete extra time direction is setting outlandish requests on open assets.

National Employment Law Project’s most prominent effort is supplying intellectual underpinning and political approach for labor union-led efforts to increase the minimum wage. To get other non-profit organization uprising and known NELP contributes and helps them out. NELP is a financial supporter of numerous state and local progressive groups and is a recommended organization in the Democracy Alliance classification. Over the past ages, NELP has provided notable contributions to several labor-backed advocacy groups Our Oregon, Working Families Organization, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, etc.

Despite necessary increments in labor efficiency, expansion balanced time-based compensation for most with the aid of a lengthy way of American experts has either stagnated or declined. This is the result of deliberate policy choices that have reduced workers’ ability to negotiate higher pay, and that has allowed capital owners and corporate managers to extract an increasing share of the income generated by American workers (Bivens et al.). Raising wages among low and center wage workers would all the while lift wages and decrease spending on open help programs.

Raising the minimum wage will benefit many consumer spending, help businesses’ bottom lines, and grow the economy. July 24 marked nine years since the federal minimum wage was last increased. Today, the federal minimum of $7.25 leaves an adult with two children thousands of dollars below the federal poverty threshold. The federal minimum wage amounts to just $15,080 a year for full-time work. With making only $15,080 a year while paying housing, utilities, and food an individual only gets the opportunity to spend on their needs, not their wants. More money in the pockets of low-wage workers means more sales. A principal cause the current economic healing is anemic is that so many Americans lack the purchasing strength to get the financial system transferring once more.

For businesses to keep their business going they depend on consumer spending. Since most people are making lower pay then they should be getting not a lot of people are spending money on unnecessary things. Holly Sklar a CEO of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage said, Businesses rely on consumer spending and consumer spending depends heavily on wages. The minimum wage sets the floor under worker pay millions of workers have paychecks above the inadequate minimum wage, but still too low to make ends meet. Some businesses, from small and medium-sized operations to major corporations like Ikea, Costco, Facebook, and Amalgamated Bank have taken steps to raise their wages well above the required minimum level.

With NELP’s help and campaigns such as The Fight For $15, Raising the Minimum Wage, and strengthening Support for the Unemployed is influencing many people/businesses to increase their wages. One place it has influenced is a city in North Carolina named St. Paul and it is the second place to increase their minimum wage. St. Paul has made history and is the second adopting a $15 minimum wage for its workers as Minneapolis was the first (NELP). With them increasing their wages it will help a majority of their low-wage workers and their consumers will likely spend more money now.

Poverty in the United States is getting worse each day and not enough is getting done about it. The reasons for poverty have yet to be thoroughly distinguished. Poverty stricken countries are majorly focused in the continents of Africa and Asia. Continents like the Americas and Europe have globally been diagnosed as being wealthier yet nonetheless many parts of these supposed nations face massive cases of poverty. Most at times, international locations with high populations owing to high beginning fees face the most cases of poverty. The definition of poverty can be boundless in the experience that poverty entails so many subsections as it occasionally receives complex to crew everything underneath one umbrella. Minimum wages have a modest impact on poverty in developing international locations for various reasons.

In most growing international locations, the minimal wage successfully applies to solely a minority of terrible workers. It does not cowl self-employed people nor personnel in the giant casual sector the place most of the bad work, and the place it is frequent for people to earn below the criminal minimum wage. The minimum wage increase would play important role in decreasing poverty and elevating family earning at the lowest. By raising the minimum wage to just even a couple dollars can help a lot of people. According to the CBO, “raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would bring 900,000 people out of poverty”.

Although a few people would lose their jobs, the working poor as a group could benefit. In 2010 the bottom fifth of working-age American households relied on wages for most of their income. Programs like food stamps (SNAP), state insurance, and social insurance have helped scale back impoverishment over the last four decades. Even in the formal region compliance and enforcement of minimum wages is imperfect. Though not a lot is being done to solve the problem, NELP is fighting for reforms that lift low-wage workers and the unemployed. NELP had been creating campaigns and projects to help.

One of the organization’s projects is RaisetheMinimumWage.com, an internet site that gives information and organizing opportunities for those interested in raising federal and local minimum wages. The site notes that NELP “is committed to rebuilding the wage floor for low-wage workers in the US can provide strategic support, technical assistance, research, materials, and coordination for a campaign” (Raising the Minimum Wage). Increasing minimum wage has a large impact on the country’s financial system and its people. Every year there is a large debate at our country about raising minimum wages. Some experts say that raising minimum wages can enhance the existence style of these employees who are below the poverty line. Raising the minimum wage will not only help people get out poverty but also allow them to make something out of themselves without relying on the government.

In conclusion, the minimum wage has both advantage and disadvantages to the country. Minimum wage stimulates the financial expand of a country with the aid of growing consumption. Increasing minimum wage will improve the quality of life of low-income workers. Though some people may have good reasons on why the minimum wage shouldn’t increase, though increasing it brings benefits to the country. Increasing the minimum wage will lift the economy up, the bond with the government assistance will break, the amount of consumer spending will increase, and the increase in the poverty level. Although not a lot is being done to solve the problem, NELP is fighting for reforms that lift low-wage workers and the unemployed.

In Washington and in states and cities around the country, NELP is fighting to increase wages so low-wage families can live on an economy that does have a low poverty rate. NELP is a non – profit organization promoting policies to’ create good jobs, increase access to work and enhance protection and support for low – wage and unemployed workers. NELP has successfully created campaigns and projects to help and support the low-wage workers. Campaigns like “The Fight for $15” and a project on an internet website called “Raising the Minimum Wage”. With these campaigns and projects places like St. Paul have already increased their wages to $15 now.

The point is to help the lower-income families improve their lives and live over the poverty level. A bonus for the government, by raising the minimum wage they can get more people off programs like food stamps, welfare, etc. More people will be making a living on their own and it will be good for the economy. Increasing the minimum wage benefits everyone including; the government, the economy, and the families.

The deadline is too short to read someone else's essay
Hire a verified expert to write you a 100% Plagiarism-Free paper
WRITE MY ESSAY
Papersowl
4.7/5
Sitejabber
4.7/5
Reviews.io
4.9/5

Cite this page

Main Causes Why Minimum Wage Should Increase. (2019, Jun 28). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/main-causes-why-minimum-wage-should-increase/