Five mats - one for each child and then an extra for herself. When Maria Garcia moved from Mexico, she had imagined a different life for herself and future family. The United States promised her freedom, but she didn’t get any. Held hostage by her low income (personification), she was a slave to her bills. Everyday digging herself deeper, and deeper into the hole of impending debt, dreading the day her oldest child would ask if he could go to college. Her salary is, sadly, even higher than the federal minimum wage of 7.25, yet she still faces day to day financial struggles. Over 3.3 million people in the United States make 7.25 an hour or less each year. Only supporting one worker, they’d be just skimming by - rent, cheap food, and depending
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What about health care? Many jobs that pay minimum wage don’t have benefits like these! In a country with people so wealthy they can buy multiple islands, in a country with people so wealthy they won’t work a day in their lives, they cannot come together as a nation to give people who work long, grueling hours, a wage that allows them the most basic needs of humanity? The answer is they can, but they aren’t. If America keeps the federal minimum wage at 7.25, economic growth will cease, poverty levels will rise, and salary inequality will climb (parallelism).
The widening gap between the upper and lower class is daunting. Within the same cities there are people who make millions of dollars, and some that make less than 15,000. The chairman of Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers notes this, "There are a lot of causes of inequality but [the erosion of the minimum wage] is one of the important ones for inequality at the bottom,"(Sahidi). The middle class is virtually gone. The United States’ economy no longer gives everyone equal opportunity, but rather favors high earning CEOs, leaving the victims of the Great Recession trapped in minimum wage paying job. Along with taking a dramatic hit to their salaries,
What about health care? Many jobs that pay minimum wage don’t have benefits like these! In a country with people so wealthy they can buy multiple islands, in a country with people so wealthy they won’t work a day in their lives, they cannot come together as a nation to give people who work long, grueling hours, a wage that allows them the most basic needs of humanity? The answer is they can, but they aren’t. If America keeps the federal minimum wage at 7.25, economic growth will cease, poverty levels will rise, and salary inequality will climb (parallelism).
The widening gap between the upper and lower class is daunting. Within the same cities there are people who make millions of dollars, and some that make less than 15,000. The chairman of Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers notes this, "There are a lot of causes of inequality but [the erosion of the minimum wage] is one of the important ones for inequality at the bottom,"(Sahidi). The middle class is virtually gone. The United States’ economy no longer gives everyone equal opportunity, but rather favors high earning CEOs, leaving the victims of the Great Recession trapped in minimum wage paying job. Along with taking a dramatic hit to their salaries,