The minimum wage debate has been a disputed topic in the United States for many years since it was first implemented. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill allowing for a federal minimum wage to be set (Grossman 1). 70 years later, many minimum wage workers and other government officials want to implement a 15 dollar per hour minimum wage. While the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, the negative impact of the economy explains why it should stay that way, if not be reduced or eradicated. In states that have implemented a higher minimum wage, there are already statistics to prove the economic decline. Raising the minimum wage would hurt both the economy and the average worker due to the loss of jobs that would occur,
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What does “livable wage” even mean? Of course it’s supposed to be saying that an individual can’t support themselves off of a salary that low, but what is enough to live is different for everyone. Some people are married, single, divorced, have kids, or are ill, and their “livable wage” would vary greatly, so where to draw the line becomes blurry (Jaarda 3). Why the government even needs to draw the line is complicated as well. The minimum wage workers are working low-involvement jobs, like cashiers or waiters. The question is if their labor is even worth 15 dollars an hour in the first place. The fact that they may not be able to live off that wage should not have to matter. Some people earn 20,000 dollars a year, some earn $40,000, and a even a smaller percentage earn $400,000, but if the people making those salaries can live of their income or not is not what determines how much they make, it’s the labor and time they put into it. The reason some people earn more money than others is simply because they are doing more work than the others (Schiff 2). The person earning the $7.25 an hour is doing labor that is worth $7.25 an hour and no more. As Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University Law School, states, “Only higher productivity secures long-term higher wages” (Epstein 7). If the labor a worker is putting into their job doesn’t happen to get a wage they can support a certain lifestyle, there is nothing they can do but work harder in a new
What does “livable wage” even mean? Of course it’s supposed to be saying that an individual can’t support themselves off of a salary that low, but what is enough to live is different for everyone. Some people are married, single, divorced, have kids, or are ill, and their “livable wage” would vary greatly, so where to draw the line becomes blurry (Jaarda 3). Why the government even needs to draw the line is complicated as well. The minimum wage workers are working low-involvement jobs, like cashiers or waiters. The question is if their labor is even worth 15 dollars an hour in the first place. The fact that they may not be able to live off that wage should not have to matter. Some people earn 20,000 dollars a year, some earn $40,000, and a even a smaller percentage earn $400,000, but if the people making those salaries can live of their income or not is not what determines how much they make, it’s the labor and time they put into it. The reason some people earn more money than others is simply because they are doing more work than the others (Schiff 2). The person earning the $7.25 an hour is doing labor that is worth $7.25 an hour and no more. As Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University Law School, states, “Only higher productivity secures long-term higher wages” (Epstein 7). If the labor a worker is putting into their job doesn’t happen to get a wage they can support a certain lifestyle, there is nothing they can do but work harder in a new