Why Minimum Wage Should Be Raised Alex Tottle

Background Minimum wage laws were first instituted in 1938 by the US Department of Labor to create a limit for how little a company may pay an individual employee. People all over the nation are effected by minimum wage laws, even if minimum wage does not apply to them. The Fair Labor Standards act of 1938 established a federally required minimum wage to ensure that no citizen was being cheated out of their labor.

The Issue Many Americans today are only earning minimum wage: however the concept of minimum wage was not to have every worker earning it. Minimum wage was created as a buffer for workers to not be paid less than that. Americans who are living off of just minimum wage often have to take another job just to make ends meet The quality of living for Americans living off of minimum wage is very low, and unemployment in America is stuck at 7%. It has been proven that by earning minimum wage, a person is living well below the poverty line. This problem affects many Americans and action must be taken

Step 1: Raising Minimum Wage Positives  Raising the federal minimum wage will make it possible for a person or family to live off of a minimum wage salary while staying above the poverty line.  Living conditions and quality of life will improve making the life of an average American better.  Workers will try harder at their job because they are making more money. Negatives  May make employers less likely to hire inexperienced workers.  May make the individual jobs more demanding and the workers less secure with keeping their jobs.  Workers with higher education may be paid as much as those just earning minimum wage.

Step 2: Offer Higher Education At Lower Prices Positives  Allows Americans to get higher paying jobs because of their higher education.  Makes the nation smarter as a whole. Negatives  Higher taxes to pay for publicly accessible higher education.  Higher education at lower prices would be unfair to those that worked hard to pay for their higher schooling.

Step 3: Raise The Minimum Working Age To 18  Allow more jobs for qualified workers.  Quality of work would go up with more mature and experienced workers.  Allows teens to focus on their education.  Businesses would lose a large section of their workers.  Teens would be stuck at home instead of working.  Teens could no longer work to pay for their own higher education.

Conclusion With the three steps in place, the problems that are created from each individual step is solved by the other two. This plan is not a perfect one but it is a little bit closer to solving the problems of unemployment, low quality of live and living conditions, and the number of people below the poverty line.