Argumentative Essay On Minimum Wage

Improved Essays
Minimum wage
Minimum wage is the least wages that employers are supposed to pay the employees. It also refers to the lowest values at which the employees are expected to sell their labor. Various nations throughout the world have adopted the minimum wage laws. The issue of minimum wage has been a controversial one in for many decades. This is a global problem because heated debates have existed on whether the minimum wage should be raised or not. The people who support laws concerning minimum wage argue that it raises the living standards of the employees, helps the economy and alleviates poverty. The opponents assert when the minimum wage is increased, the unemployment rates are increased, and this favors the high skilled employees at the
…show more content…
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%. Therefore, when the minimum wage is raised, the poverty levels tend to be reduced. Besides, a higher minimum wage is seen to benefit the economy by increasing customer consuming. Economists assert that every dollar that was added to the minimum hourly wage translated to $2800 annual consumer spending. Lastly, they argue that the workers who earn more than the set minimum wage also seen an increase in their …show more content…
Card and Krueger (1993) give statistics on how minimum wage has been since its inception. For instance, they state that in New Jersey, the initial minimum wage was $4.25 to $5.05 an hour. The bill of increasing the minimum wage in Jersey was passed in April 1990. In 1991, the minimum wage was further increased. In 1992, business leaders opposed these laws. Despite this opposition, this law was finally passed. Pennsylvania’s minimum wage was $3.80 in 1991 and $4.25 in 1992. From this data, it is clear that New Jersey had the highest minimum wage rate as compared to Pennsylvania. As stated by the authors, this had no effect on employment. This could mean that whenever the there was an increase in minimum wage, the two restaurants passed the burden to the consumers. The limitation of Card and Krueger 's research is that the effect of the minimum wage has not been scientifically proven. This has led to the current controversial issues about the topic. Therefore, further research needs to be done on the effect of minimum wage on

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
  • Improved Essays

    Texas Minimum Wage Essay

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Research Question: Historically, how did an increases in minimum wage affect the fast food sector in Texas versus the fast food industry in California from 1990 to 1999? On 1894, New Zealand was the first country to officially establish a national minimum wage and in 1912, Massachusetts was the first state in the United States of America to establish a minimum wage. This idea quickly gained popularity and other states soon passed their own minimum wage laws. In 1938, President Franklin D Roosevelt passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed which established a federal minimum of $0.25 an hour.…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Minimum wage is a relatively new concept in the labour market. It was created with the idea that minimum wage will be a stepping stone into a better paying job in mind. As the years have gone by, minimum wage jobs have evolved from supporting teenagers and giving them the necessary experience in the work field to supporting families. It’s this change in dynamics that fuels the argument that minimum wage should increase to a living wage. What people fail to realize is that minimum wage exists for a reason and should it be increased; the positive impacts are outweighed by the negative impacts in the economy.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Minimum wage is the lowest wage allowed by law or by special agreement. the federal minimum wage for covered over time paid employees is 7.25 per hour; which was enforced july 24, 2009. these type of employees are called non exempt employees under the FLSA act. Employees must pay them one an a half times their regular pay when they work over fourty hours a week. in my opinion, we should not have minimum wage laws nor should we raise them.…

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These are the effects of the theory of supply and demand and adjusting to inflammation. As Barack Obama stated: “A basic moral principle that most Americans agree on is no one who works a full time job should live below the poverty line, nor should their family. Yet over time we’ve seen significant growth in the “working poor” –people working full time, sometimes even 60 or more hours each week, but at such low wages that they remain impoverished.” Raising the minimum wage will improve the standards of living for these people who are hard working class Americans, but still cannot afford to live above the poverty line.…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Today there is an ongoing debate related to minimum wage, stating whether we should raise the price or not. The supporting side of raising minimum wage states that it will create better living conditions for that target population, in addition to create new employment opportunities. Opposing views argue that raising minimum wage would in fact decrease employment resulting in a higher number of unemployment rate. Opposing views also argue that many business will not be able to afford paying their employees higher than $7.25, and would force business to either close, lay off workers, and reduce hiring. There is also disagreement with raising the federal minimum wage because it does not take into consideration each state’s cost of living (Addison & Blackburn,…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Benefits Of Minimum Wage

    • 1697 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Many citizens in the United States struggle, barely making it with minimum wage paying jobs. Most people work two to three jobs put together, to pay for their livings and to support for their families. Based on the State of California: Department of Industrial Relations, in October 1, 1996, minimum wage was $4.25-increasing to $4.75 within that year. A year after, in March 1st, the wage was $5.15-$5.75, but it changed again on September 1st. Increasing a dollar twenty-five.…

    • 1697 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great 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

    Hiring Minimum Wage Essay

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hiring federal minimum wage is a very controversial debate among society, this topic has many pros and cons. Minimum wage is the base pay, meaning no employer should pay their employees less, however having a low minimum wage allows motivation for employees to strive for the hourly rate raise. I am against hiring minimum wage because while it can increase the income for household it requires employers to divide their pay evenly among their employees; this may cost the jobs of several of the other employees causing more families to go into poverty. Arguments for minimum wage often claim it to be an effective method to change poverty for the better. If businesses are required by the federal government to pay their employees more then their employees should earn more income and many of them can get out of poverty.…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The issue of minimum wage has been a hotly debated topic among politicians and their constituents. Many argue whether minimum wage exists to help people on poverty or used as a base salary for future positions. This issue has been especially concerning for candidates running for the 2016 presidential election. Despite being a somewhat simple topic, the argument for minimum wage has divided Americans in terms of what to do. In Ari Armstrong’s article, he argues that minimum wage is egregious and will only harm the economy by causing people to have lower motivations and lack of employment.…

    • 1546 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Since 1938 the United States government came up with an idea called minimum wage. The reason why minimum wage jobs were made were for people in poverty to get a better job or to go back to school or kids so they could make money for school and other things. So making minimum wage higher to help these people out to get to the next step is what we want to do. In the article “Raising the Minimum Wage: Effects on Family Poverty” by Ronald B. Mincy, states that two men named Edward M. Gramlich and Terrence Kelly proved “that most work low wage workers are not poor.” (18).…

    • 1764 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Raising wages would help people get off of food stamps, and ultimate benefits. For this reason, government save money and create economic security. We would all love a raise. People need to be raising the minimum wage. Unfortunately, the issue is not simple.…

    • 1438 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There are three main reasons why the federal minimum wage should not be raised; it would result in job loss, it would have little effect on reducing poverty, and it will result in higher prices for consumers. When the federal minimum wage increases, one route a business can take is to raise their product prices. The reason a business would have to take such an action is because minimum wage jobs where meant to be easily performed and meant to be payed accordingly. In The Negative Effects of Minimum Wage Laws by Mark Wilson a 2004 “review of more than 20 minimum wage studies looking at price effects found that a 10 percent increase in the U.S. minimum wage raises food prices by up to 4 percent” and in a 2007 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that restaurant prices increase in response to minimum wage increases. Another route that a business can take if the federal minimum wage where to be increased, to begin replacing its cashiers or workers with self-ordering machines and other machines.…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Raising Minimum Wage

    • 1378 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Minimum wage had been a big impact in American society today. Minimum wage is an amount of money that is the least amount of money per hour that workers must be paid according to the law. Furthermore , To be fully explanatory, Minimum wage is the lowest wage paid or permitted to be paid; specifically : a wage fixed by legal authority or by contract as the least that may be paid either to employed persons generally or to a particular category of employed persons. The minimum wage is something that F.D.R. put in place a long time ago during the Great Depression. Plain and simple, Congress must act to meet the needs of our constituents.…

    • 1378 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The minimum wage is a controversial political issue. Americans’ views on the minimum wage law vary widely; some citizens believe that it should be abolished entirely, others think that the minimum amount should be expanded to match the rate of inflation. Raising the minimum wage does not come without its issues. However adjusting the minimum wage to match inflation, the United States would see an increase in economic activity, a reduction in poverty, and a reduction in race and gender inequalities.…

    • 1202 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics