INTRODUCTION
Controversy arose after Minneapolis, Minnesota recently announced that they would be raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour, following the example of many other cities in the country. Both sides of the issue have a hard time agreeing on whether or not minimum wage, the lowest amount an employer can pay his/her employees, should be a livable wage. This problem is not new; it has been up for debate for over one hundred years. The minimum wage is a complex and divisive issue that reaches back to the early 1900’s, with two sides that disagree about whether or not it should be a living wage. Proponents of a livable minimum wage argue that it would help the economy, reduce poverty, and would end the inequality that exists with a low …show more content…
A law was passed that only covered women and children under the age of eighteen. While no official minimum wage existed, employers who paid inadequate wages had their names put in the public newspapers. While his law had little effect, it set off an explosion of other similar laws in the next decade. However, minimum wages were ruled unconstitutional in 1923, only for the ruling to be reversed in 1937. This allowed for the introduction of minimum wages at the federal level, which started with the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. This originally set wages for workers at 25 cents per hour, which would be equivalent to about $4.04 today. After Franklin Roosevelt signed the FLSA, the minimum wage has constantly been raised throughout the years by multiple presidents, totaling twenty-two times so far. It reached its highest point in 1968 when Lyndon B. Johnson raised it to $1.60 per hour, which would be $10.75 per hour today. In comparison, the current minimum wage today is $7.25 an hour. While the act only reached industries totaling 20% of working people when it was signed, it affects 84% of working people today. Although the minimum wage is still relatively young in the United States, the expanding amount of people it affects has caused it to be an important issue in today’s political …show more content…
It would do this by raising the incomes of millions of families in the United States. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would give each person working full-time throughout the year a bonus of about $3,500 a year. This amount of money would be very helpful to the forty-one million workers who would potentially receive it. This raise in income for so many Americans could significantly reduce poverty. In fact, if the minimum wage were to have been raised to $10.10 in 2014, estimates show that it would have brought almost seven million people out of poverty by 2016. This reduction in poverty and increase in the standard of living of low-wage workers as a result of raising the minimum wage to a living wage results in a decrease in the number of poor people dependent on government public assistance programs, such as food stamps. By giving them a step up through this increased wage, not only will their standard of living increase, but the U.S. government would also save about $7.6 billion a year by not having to pour money into these
Controversy arose after Minneapolis, Minnesota recently announced that they would be raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour, following the example of many other cities in the country. Both sides of the issue have a hard time agreeing on whether or not minimum wage, the lowest amount an employer can pay his/her employees, should be a livable wage. This problem is not new; it has been up for debate for over one hundred years. The minimum wage is a complex and divisive issue that reaches back to the early 1900’s, with two sides that disagree about whether or not it should be a living wage. Proponents of a livable minimum wage argue that it would help the economy, reduce poverty, and would end the inequality that exists with a low …show more content…
A law was passed that only covered women and children under the age of eighteen. While no official minimum wage existed, employers who paid inadequate wages had their names put in the public newspapers. While his law had little effect, it set off an explosion of other similar laws in the next decade. However, minimum wages were ruled unconstitutional in 1923, only for the ruling to be reversed in 1937. This allowed for the introduction of minimum wages at the federal level, which started with the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. This originally set wages for workers at 25 cents per hour, which would be equivalent to about $4.04 today. After Franklin Roosevelt signed the FLSA, the minimum wage has constantly been raised throughout the years by multiple presidents, totaling twenty-two times so far. It reached its highest point in 1968 when Lyndon B. Johnson raised it to $1.60 per hour, which would be $10.75 per hour today. In comparison, the current minimum wage today is $7.25 an hour. While the act only reached industries totaling 20% of working people when it was signed, it affects 84% of working people today. Although the minimum wage is still relatively young in the United States, the expanding amount of people it affects has caused it to be an important issue in today’s political …show more content…
It would do this by raising the incomes of millions of families in the United States. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would give each person working full-time throughout the year a bonus of about $3,500 a year. This amount of money would be very helpful to the forty-one million workers who would potentially receive it. This raise in income for so many Americans could significantly reduce poverty. In fact, if the minimum wage were to have been raised to $10.10 in 2014, estimates show that it would have brought almost seven million people out of poverty by 2016. This reduction in poverty and increase in the standard of living of low-wage workers as a result of raising the minimum wage to a living wage results in a decrease in the number of poor people dependent on government public assistance programs, such as food stamps. By giving them a step up through this increased wage, not only will their standard of living increase, but the U.S. government would also save about $7.6 billion a year by not having to pour money into these