Essay On Increasing The Minimum Wage

The first federal minimum wage rate was enacted on Oct 24, 1938 at $0.25 per hour and has been increasing ever since. The minimum wage is set so that employers cannot pay their employees below the minimum rate. While the federal government set the minimum wage to $7.25 in 2009 many states have passed legislations to raise the living wage and succeed. Therefore now many states have a higher base pay than the purposed federal wage rate. The option to increase or decrease minimum wages has been a controversial subject now more than ever. With many states increasing their base wages, the arguments are about whether the advantages can out way the disadvantages. As any individual is titled to their own opinion, I believe in the advocacy for increasing the minimum wage. By increasing the base wage, I believe that the pros can out way the cons. Two main factors that are addressed in everyday news has to do with the different views on whether or …show more content…
Many believe that with the increase in government set minimum wage that the unemployment rate will increase. But according to the United States Department of Labor they prove how the effects of unemployment in relation to wage growth is negligible. Six hundred economists debunked the myth that Americans will lose their jobs if there is a wage increase in a letter to President Obama. They stated that, “that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market.” Therefore raising the minimum wage will not have the damaging effects that many propose and believe. In an article from NPR, a quote from the Associated Press writes that there is data to show that in the states that have increased their minimum wage there has been a “0.85 percent increase in the average number of jobs in 13 states and 0.61 percent in the other 37 states.