How Does The Minimum Wage Affect The Economy

Improved Essays
Minimum Wages
The federal minimum wage was introduced in 1938 during the Great Depression under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Each state in the United States has laws on minimum wage. The minimum wage set by each state is suppose to increase the ability to support standard living and reduce poverty. When defining poverty, the words inferior, insufficient and extremely poor comes up. Therefore, minimum wage is doing its part some what to the economy by keeping some workers at minimum wage from being extremely poor but still poor. The nation minimum wage is 7.25 an hour but how can a person live off minimum wage? This essay will explain how minimum wage affects the economy.
So who works for minimum wage and why? Usually the first job a person has is when they are in high school. Places that usually hires a high school student are fast food restaurant, grocery stores and some department store. When hiring a high school student expectation are extremely because they are hiring
…show more content…
Raising the minimum wage would increase economic activity and spur job growth. How every there will always be a group that do not want to work and is comfortable with the government taking care of them. At the same time increasing the minimum wage would reduce poverty even if it is only by 20 or 30 percent. If company have to lay off workers because the work they are doing do add up to the labor work those people would be job less. A higher minimum wage would reduce government welfare spending but once again only by a little because people that will get laid off have to be put into accountability. Increasing the minimum wage would force businesses to lay off employees and raise unemployment levels. It would hurt businesses and force companies to close. Teenagers and young adults may be shut out of the workforce if the minimum wage is increased. Who would want to hire a young inexperience person and have to pay them 10 – 15 dollars an

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    04.02 Assignment 2

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Third, many people believe that raising the minimum wage hurts businesses, and this is a big argument against raising the minimum wage. Research has shown that this is not true. As the minimum wage increases, the rate of employee turnover decreases. Raising the minimum wage encourages people to stay at their workplace for a longer amount of time. The decrease in employee turnover also saves business and corporations millions of dollars…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Most Americans think that raising minimum wage will reduce poverty, but yet do they know that raising the minimum wage will not do anything to poverty (Sherk). Workers that work hard and long hours should be able to feed and house their family (Harkin 18). Raising the minimum wage would hurt the economy more than help it. State hourly minimums range from $7.50 in Arkansas to $9.47 in Washington state (Desilver)…

    • 1017 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why Minimum Wage Should Not Be Raised: Minimum wage is one of the most discussed topics in the U.S, whether or not it should be raised or lowered. It has drastically increases since it first started at 0.25 in 1938 (Politics of minimum wage) to now 7.25 in 2009 (Politics of minimum wage). Despite the poverty rates in America, minimum wage should not be changed, because it will just be an accessory to raising production cost. Raising minimum wage would not necessarily ruin the economy, but it would raise the production costs and the pay for every employee, not only would it raise production cost, but it would also lower employment rates and raise hours worked by one person. If the employee does not meet the requirement, then the company’s revenue…

    • 349 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dear Raja. The minimum wage must be raised because it get’s people out of poverty and the economy will boost because if they have more money there will be more purchasing power. Minimum wage gets people out of poverty. The congressional budget office estimated that raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.25 would lift 900000 people out of poverty. This proves that they get people out of poverty because they will be able to live a normal life with enough money.…

    • 359 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Minimum wage is a relatively new concept in the labour market. It was created with the idea that minimum wage will be a stepping stone into a better paying job in mind. As the years have gone by, minimum wage jobs have evolved from supporting teenagers and giving them the necessary experience in the work field to supporting families. It’s this change in dynamics that fuels the argument that minimum wage should increase to a living wage. What people fail to realize is that minimum wage exists for a reason and should it be increased; the positive impacts are outweighed by the negative impacts in the economy.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It turns out that increasing the minimum wage means decreasing job opportunities. If the minimum wage increased, people will face lots of problem such as- it would result in the job loss evidence of job losses, hurt low-skilled workers, little effect on reducing poverty, and it may result in the higher price for consumers. Most Americans agree the current federal minimum wage is not enough to live on. It is hard to imagine some families are surviving on just $15,000 a year.…

    • 1438 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Minimum Wage A hot topic across the United States is the debate about raising minimum wage. In Iowa the minimum wage is seven dollars and fifty cents. Some states have higher minimum wages but that could be due to the cost of living in that state. The United States’ minimum wage is seven dollars and fifty cents which most states follow. New York’s minimum wage is nine dollars an hour.…

    • 1764 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Why Raising Minimum Wage is Bad Over the years, raising the federal minimum wage rate of $7.25 to $15 an hour in the US has been a controversial topic and there is no clear solution to this issue. The purpose of raising the minimum wage is to decrease poverty, increase job growth and reduce federal deficit but there is evidence to show that the economy will have adverse effects from this change. Increasing the minimum wage is beneficial for a short period of time but it will only hurt the economy and the overall workers long term.…

    • 1507 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Increasing the minimum wage will raise the level of students that will have a higher level of education. As the number of education students increases so does the workforce, there are more people that are eligible for jobs, therefore less students that are unemployed and unqualified for the work force. If there is a lesser unemployment rate than the people who live in lower income areas will have stable jobs, therefore having a steady income, allowing the economy in these areas to flourish, allowing the standards of living to rise. As a result of the standards of living raising, the crime in these communities will go down, creating a safer place to live and less illegal criminal activity, therefore less black markets, this means that. It is a common disbelief that raising the minimum wage will create a surplus.…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Raising Minimum Wage

    • 244 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Poverty all over American can be reduced significantly. Raising the minimum wage would increase the economic activity and spur job growth. Increasing the minimum wage would reduce poverty. By increasing the minimum wage it will help pay for their bill, payments and their own personal needs and satisfaction. America's poverty rates has increased from 13.5% in 2015 to 15% in present day.…

    • 244 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Raising the minimum wage will just cause artificial inflation in the cost of goods. This not only hurts the minimum wage worker, but it hurts the entire consumer market. Consider this logical hypothetical situation. The lowest paid employee at a company is making minimum wage at $8 per hour, the next higher employee on the scale is the shift manager making $10 per hour, the assistant manager at $15 per hour and the general manager earning $25 per hour. If the federal government raises the lowest paid minimum wage employee to $15 per hour.…

    • 2029 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    But the raise in the minimum wage would cause a domino effect that would do a good amount of harm. The raise would cause an increase in other wages and the prices of merchandise. With these being increased there would be no change in what people can afford to buy. Furthermore, companies would find ways to decrease the number of workers they hire. Also, minimum wage should not be able to feed a family.…

    • 986 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Increasing the minimum wage could cut back on taxpayers billions of dollars because low wage workers would be making an increase in salary and would not need assistance, therefore taxpayers dollars would not go towards their needs. Minimum wage is the lowest wage paid to a worker according to the law. Minimum wage in my opinion should be increased. As a matter of fact, a living wage should be put in place instead, because it is the minimum income…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Minimum Wage

    • 2119 Words
    • 8 Pages

    According to United States Department of Labor,“The typical minimum wage worker is not a high school student earning weekend pocket money. In fact, 89 percent of those who would benefit from a federal minimum wage increase to $12 per hour are age 20 or older, and 56 percent are women.” Minimum wage needs to be increased as it will benefit the country as a whole. The United States legislative branch can withdraw money from welfare programs thus, bettering the economy, the employees of a corporation, as well as the company. Without an increase in minimum wage, trade will be affected, causing a decline in supply and demand, a lack of financial support for employees and their families, and cause a lower profit for corporations.…

    • 2119 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Therefore, when the minimum wage is raised, the poverty levels tend to be reduced. Besides, a higher minimum wage is seen to benefit the economy by increasing customer consuming. Economists assert that every dollar that was added to the minimum hourly wage translated to $2800 annual consumer spending. Lastly, they argue that the workers who earn more than the set minimum wage also seen an increase in their…

    • 2464 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays