Minimum Wage Is Necessary Essay

A Minimum Wage Increase is Necessary Recently, in the U.S. there has been an increasing amount of protests to raise the minimum wage. The Fight for $15 movement, which is a movement that strives to increase the wages of fast food workers and other occupations, organizes the majority of these protests. On the other side, there are business owners that claim that an increase in the minimum wage will negatively affect their business. They claim that in order to pay their employees higher wages they will have to lay off other workers or not hire new workers. The question of raising the federal minimum wage is being raised once again because of California and New York passing a bill to increase the minimum wage to $15 within their respected states. In the U.S. an increase in the minimum wage is necessary because it is no longer able to support its citizens. The minimum wage should increase in the U.S.-incrementally- because full-time workers deserve to be able to live off their paycheck without being financially fearful. Currently, in the U.S., the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. During Franklin D. Roosevelt 's presidency, he passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Fair Labor Standards Act was a part of the New Deal program, it established the federal minimum to prevent employers from under paying their employees and to lower poverty. However, there are exceptions to the federal minimum wage such as if the worker is under 20 an employer can pay them $4.25 per hour for their first 90 consecutive days or if they are a tipped worker an employer can pay them $2.13 per hour. The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor enforces and ensures that all workers in the U.S. are paid at least the minimum wage (Department of Labor). The minimum wage usually changes because of inflation. Inflation is an increase in prices for goods and services; higher inflation means that your currency has less purchasing power. As a result, the minimum wage is important because it helps prevent market failures that leaves workers-e.g. citizens- being paid unfairly by using unfair standards. The $7.25 an hour currently in place is not enough because of inflation and it is time to increase it to make wages fair for workers. The minimum wage is not enough to support a worker’s daily life. Those who earn the minimum wage also tend to be recipients of food stamps and other government programs similar to it (What You Need). By increasing the minimum wage, the U.S. can reduce that number since more people will be earning more. The minimum wage 's purpose is to give every worker a decent livelihood. "No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country... and by living wages I mean more than the bare subsistence level- I mean the wages of decent living." (Roosevelt). On this note it can be said that the current federal minimum wage has failed. Even though only 9.3% of U.S. workers make at or near the minimum wage that is still a significant amount (What You Need); in 2014, 1.3 million people earned minimum wage and 1.7 million people earned below the minimum wage (By the Numbers). Those workers are the source of income for their families. By earning minimum wage, a full-time worker will only make $15,080 annually before taxes, this is lower than the federal poverty line if you have a family of 2. Therefore, …show more content…
Governors have already realized this and as a result have passed bills to increase their state’s minimum wage. Increasing the minimum wage will help families be more financially secure, therefore they will spend more and will stimulate the economy due to their increased activity. Opponents argue that raising the minimum wage will increase unemployment and will bring about other negative effects but that is not the case. The negative effects that arise as a result of increasing the minimum wage are minimal and it has not been shown that minimum wage increases unemployment. The U.S. needs to increase its minimum wage because that is what is necessary for a better life of its