Intro:
Hello everyone, my name is Bellanna and I believe that California should introduce a statewide minimum wage rate of 15 dollars an hour by 2018. To give you background on my topic, I would like to begin by defining some terms for you. First of all, minimum wage is lowest wage permitted by law for a worker to earn, and living wage is one that is high enough to maintain a normal standard of living. Statewide means I want this amount to be the standard throughout all of California. The current California minimum wage, as of July 2014 is 9 dollars. However, some cities, such as San Francisco, have decided to raise it higher than that. I strongly believe that this rate should be equal in all places.
This issue affects people of different …show more content…
According to the UC Berkeley Labor center, if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, which is the general increasing of prices, it would currently be at an average of 13 dollars. If minimum wage had kept up with the productivity level, it would be 22 dollars. Minimum wage rates haven’t at all kept up with the costs of everything else such as college tuition, living costs or even groceries. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, grocery items have increased in price by 26 percent in the last seven years and the average community college tuition has increased by 44 percent. The minimum wage rate has increased in seven years by less than 20 percent. 15 dollars is not too much to ask for because minimum wage needs to catch up to all other costs, and the sooner it does the better. Saying that this increase would happen too fast isn’t true because there is no evidence that shows that this is an unreachable goal. Minimum wage rates desperately need to catch up with all of the other living costs which have increased at a very fast rate in a short amount of time. If all of these other living costs can increase by so much in such little time, then the minimum wage workers should be paid enough to afford these new and expensive
Hello everyone, my name is Bellanna and I believe that California should introduce a statewide minimum wage rate of 15 dollars an hour by 2018. To give you background on my topic, I would like to begin by defining some terms for you. First of all, minimum wage is lowest wage permitted by law for a worker to earn, and living wage is one that is high enough to maintain a normal standard of living. Statewide means I want this amount to be the standard throughout all of California. The current California minimum wage, as of July 2014 is 9 dollars. However, some cities, such as San Francisco, have decided to raise it higher than that. I strongly believe that this rate should be equal in all places.
This issue affects people of different …show more content…
According to the UC Berkeley Labor center, if the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, which is the general increasing of prices, it would currently be at an average of 13 dollars. If minimum wage had kept up with the productivity level, it would be 22 dollars. Minimum wage rates haven’t at all kept up with the costs of everything else such as college tuition, living costs or even groceries. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, grocery items have increased in price by 26 percent in the last seven years and the average community college tuition has increased by 44 percent. The minimum wage rate has increased in seven years by less than 20 percent. 15 dollars is not too much to ask for because minimum wage needs to catch up to all other costs, and the sooner it does the better. Saying that this increase would happen too fast isn’t true because there is no evidence that shows that this is an unreachable goal. Minimum wage rates desperately need to catch up with all of the other living costs which have increased at a very fast rate in a short amount of time. If all of these other living costs can increase by so much in such little time, then the minimum wage workers should be paid enough to afford these new and expensive