Compare And Contrast Minimum Wage And Paying Living Wage

Improved Essays
As the world is moving toward a better stage of economy, it requires a great amount of spending from consumers in order to keep the stage remains stable. However, this causes difficulties for families who are having a hard time in managing their expenses, or so-called families who are living under the poverty line. With a minimum wage of nine dollar and hour (California), it would be hard for one to be able to afford all the necessities that are needed in order to live in city like Los Angeles (LA). Therefore, increasing the minimum wage or paying living wage are solutions which workers are trying to push for in workplaces. The effects of increasing the minimum wage and paying living wage to workers have significant impacts on both workers …show more content…
The living wage is the only answer. It does not only help workers resolve their financial problems as mentioned above, but also allow them to afford the necessities that they need. According to Rajiv Bhatia, “A living wage generates an income sufficient to meet subsistence needs such as food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and child care” (1). By making this comment, Bhatia emphasizes his support for the workers’ hope of a chance to increase their living quality through the living wage. Moreover, Bhatia also notes, “Secondary economic benefits for a living wage would be ‘wage push’ (resulting in increasing wages for persons just above a living wage, ‘wage ripples’ (increases in prevailing wages for persons doing similar work in non-city contracts” (1). In other word, the living wage has a significance effect on most workers’ incomes. With a higher wage, workers’ difficulties in financing issues can be easily taken care of. Ultimately, by receiving the benefits from the living wage, workers are now able to afford the necessities that are needed in order to improve their living standard. Despite the fact that the living wage can greatly benefits workers. Many different organizations are debating on whether or not they should pay living wages to their workers. As companies are interpreting how paying living wage to workers can bring disadvantages onto their companies, they are forgetting the many benefits that paying living wage can also bring to the organization as a whole. Rachel Reeves, a British Labor Party politician and economist,

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    04.02 Assignment 2

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages

    04.02 Assignment As election news sweeps through several media outlets, controversial topics fire up and are debated across the nation. The American people fire up their minds, reach into their stockpile of information, and begin to passionately fight for the matters that are important to them. One topic that has gained momentum is the fight for a higher minimum wage. There are many who support this argument but there are several that believe the opposite. Raising the minimum wage will help the economy grow and will help minimum wage workers by providing them a wage off which they can live.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Job payments isn't going up so there's no way the workers are going to be able to pay for their bills if there's not increase in payment. There's lots of solutions to be able to increase payment if there's lot of ways to increase the cost of living. Employees deserve to atleast get a raise or,…

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They outline the differences between a minimum and living wage. The amount needed in order for someone to cover all the basic expenses in life determines a living wage (Klein). Advocates of a higher federal minimum wage protest that the minimum wage doesn’t support families and doesn’t represent a living wage. Glasmeier describes the situation by stating that, “A typical family of four needs to work more than 3 full-time minimum-wage jobs (a 68-hour work week per working adult) to earn a living wage.” argued as impossible for most families.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    But, raising the minimum wage is not the answer to allowing the minimum wage to become a living wage. We should eliminate government regulated minimum wage. Before I bring forward my point, let us define a wage. This is how Google defines a wage: “a fixed regular payment, typically paid on a daily or weekly basis, made by an employer to an…

    • 1117 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (Ryan 81) He believed that a living wage should provide a human being with comfort and dignity. (Ryan 82) Not only does a living wage provide the latter, it also provides opportunities and consequently, freedom. The freedom to develop physically, intellectually, morally and spiritually.…

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Minimum Wage Arguments

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The minimum wage is a hot button issue in America, especially in California. The minimum wage is the minimum hourly wage an employer can pay an employee for work. Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. A law proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown would increase Californians minimum wage from $10.00 an hour to $15.00 an hour. Many including myself believed that increasing the minimum will hurt workers, business, and overall disrupt the economy.…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I understand the cost of living and housing changes the way people feel about raising the wage but there probably would be more people working if the workers can find a job to suit their schedules and payments. A higher minimum wage is important because it reduces poverty since we will have more people working, low-income families will have a chance to provide higher education for their future generations. A higher minimum wage can also reduce welfare since some people will be able to work and pay for whatever the government was supplying them with instead of relying on things like EBT…

    • 2332 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Minimum Wage Debate

    • 278 Words
    • 2 Pages

    With the 2016 presidential election quickly approaching, the minimum wage has become a hot issue of debate among both Democratic and Republican candidates. Due to vast the social justice and economic implications contained in the idea of minimum wage laws, opinions on the issue range across a wide spectrum. First, there are those who are proponents of a minimum wage as a means of combating income inequality and promoting economic belief. Typically, proponents see a raise in the minimum wage as an opportunity to stimulate the economy by providing people with more money to spend in the economy, decreasing the expenses and need for social welfare programs and allowing businesses to hire more people and increase revenue through increased consumer…

    • 278 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Minimum Wage Benefits

    • 950 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Benefits in Raising the Minimum Wage in the U.S. The American dream is about hard work, making a home, and the pursuit of happiness. However, for a few individuals, no matter how hard they work, that dream seems out of reach. The Great Depression pushed large numbers of people into poverty and unemployment. The requirement for a wage standard was authorized with the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, requesting a few businesses to follow with the minimum wage and hour’s required by law.…

    • 950 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Armstrong believes that the fact that no one can agree on what a "living wage" is means that the term is completely random. He believes that minimum wage is “a legally mandated minimum that employers must pay employees regardless of all relevant facts pertaining to their businesses.” According to Armstrong, if the government forces employers to pay employees more than their work is worth to employers, then employers will either stop hiring new employees or fire those who don 't work harder than the legally mandated minimum wage. Because workers are getting paid a higher wage anyway, they will have no motivation to work hard or attempt to get promotions. Ari Armstrong offers one half perspectives on minimum…

    • 1546 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Minimum Living Wage

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages

    There are countless advocates who are trying to convince people that minimum wage should be raised to a living wage. Sue Legg, who is a part of “The League of Women Voters,” is one of those promoters. In her article, The Minimum Wage is not a Living Wage, she writes, “A first step to narrow the inequality gap would be to pay fully employed workers a living wage that allows them to care for themselves and their families adequately” (Legg). However, in Legg’s article, she does not address the potential consequences that raising the minimum wage could have. Businesses would be greatly hindered if the minimum wage was increased to a living wage.…

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Millions of people and families would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage. Today the federal minimum wage is currently at $7.25, but should be at nearly $10, or better yet even higher. But the last time Congress voted to raise the wage to its current rate of $7.25 an hour was seven years ago. Since then, the cost of life 's essentials have shot up. Groceries cost 20% more, a gallon of gas costs 25%more, and average tuition at a community college increased 44%.…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As we add together the cost of living today it shows that a minimum wage should be higher. This would make sense why to increase the wage for Americans. But if we increase the wage and then our economy inflates and the value of a dollar decreases and our cost of living goes up. If our cost of living goes up then we are back to where we started, wanting to increases the minimum wage so we can afford the cost of living. This problem is a never ending tenacious circle that we will keep going through if we increase…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Raise Minimum Wage Essay

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages

    High salary help workers pay debt and help work out of poverty. For instance, one of my co-workers Freddie quit his job for another job that pays him more. When a company doesn’t pay workers higher as they supposed to, it hurts the company and the economy system because if they find a job that pays them more; they would take that job. When companies are paying employee higher minimum wage it helps the economy because they spend it on gas, grocery and house items. As a result, companies are the reason why people cannot afford a place to stay or to buy food to eat.…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To support their claim, they assert that the purpose of the living wage is to ensure that needs such as food, water, clothing, healthcare, and transportation are met. Thus, the proponents of raising minimum wage argue that it leads to the reduction of poverty levels. Poverty has increased in the United States because an increasing number of the employees take low-wage jobs. 12.6% of the Americans were living in poverty in 2005. In 2012, the rate was higher since it hiked 15.7%.…

    • 2464 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics